The RCMP has a reputation for being so careful and cunning, its investigators “always get their man.” But Tuesday, during what was supposed to be a press conference about Nova Scotia’s mass shootings, the man they got was a registered gun lobbyist.
Nova Scotia RCMP superintendent Darren Campbell did most of the talking at the livecast press briefing, with RCMP spokesperson corporal Jennifer Clarke moderating and providing French translation. Campbell gave a half-hour update on the investigation into the April 18 and 19 tragedy before taking questions from reporters calling in by teleconference. The first came from CBC national reporter Kayla Hounsell.
Hounsell asked what caused RCMP constables Chad Morrison and Heidi Stevenson to be alone in their police cars Sunday morning as they hunted the gunman, a fateful decision considering the shooter ended up wounding Morrison and killing Stevenson. “By the time constable Stevenson and Morrison were planning to meet up, you had some clear idea of what you were potentially facing here,” Hounsell said. “So we’re wondering why your officers had not doubled up or partnered up at this time.”
“Thanks for your question,” Campbell said, before answering without giving away much detail about the RCMP’s investigative methods. “What I can tell you is that all of our officers weren’t alone.”
After Hounsell, over the next half hour other journalists from local, national and international media organizations asked their questions, to be heard by Campbell, Clarke and anyone tuning in to or streaming the broadcast. (As of Wednesday afternoon, the CBC webcast had over 56,000 views, while Global’s had more than 18,000.)
There were reporters from CTV, the Canadian Press, CBC Nova Scotia, The Coast, the Chronicle-Herald, Global, The Globe and Mail and The Wall Street Journal. Their inquiries included questions about external oversight of the RCMP’s critical incident review, why the investigation has reached into the United States, if the gunman had a history of domestic abuse, how the RCMP decides to use the province’s Emergency Alert System, and where the gunman got his semi-automatic handguns and semi-automatic rifles.
The last reporter to ask a question was Héloïse Rodriguez from Radio-Canada. That question, about the relationship between the gunman and the first woman he assaulted Saturday night at the start of rampage, came in French. Campbell and Clarke conferred at the podium off-mic before Clarke answered in French. Then she said, “One more question please.”
If the province’s daily COVID-19 press briefing is anything to go by, there are always more journalists signed up to join this sort of big-news conference call than there is time for questions. There was certainly pent-up demand from reporters who are following the shooting story, because before Tuesday, the RCMP hadn’t given a briefing on the gunman and the investigation into the shootings since Friday.
For Tuesday’s press conference, pre-registration closed two hours before the call started, which should have given the RCMP time to figure out the pecking order of reporters to take questions from. And yet the last question of the day didn’t go to a journalist, it went to a registered gun lobbyist.
“Was the murderer in possession of a so-called military-style assault rifle?” the gun advocate asked. Campbell said there was “a weapon that could be described that way,” but he didn’t want to get into details for fear of tainting witness accounts, so the firearms lobbyist asked a follow-up question. “Can you say whether or not that so-called military-style assault rifle was actually used in the rampage?”
“I can’t at this point, at all, talk to you about too many of the weapons,” Campbell said. “Constable Morrison, as well as the other surviving gunshot-wound victim that was leaving the Portapique area, described that the gunman had shot them with a handgun.”
The Coast contacted the lobbyist, who is also executive director of a Canadian gun advocacy organization. He was not even a bit ashamed of weaponizing a press conference about a mass shooting incident in some sort of service to his organization’s aims, which boil down to encouraging gun use and fighting gun laws.
“Sadly main stream media is typically anti-gun and civil disarmamentalist and have been pushing this self serving agenda for decades,” wrote the professional gun advocate in an email, pushing the anti-media agenda tyrants have been using for centuries. “Law abiding Canadian firearms owners no longer trust main stream media to report unbiased truth and have turned to alternative sources to keep them informed.”
We asked RCMP spokesperson Clarke why the gun community’s hired gun was allowed in the press briefing. There has been no response yet.
How much detail the RCMP releases about what really happened on April 18 and 19 we won’t know—but the police are encouraging anyone with information to call 902-750-5959 or 1-833-570-0121 toll free.
This article appears in Apr 1-30, 2020.
Crap media reporting.
What ever happened to free speech with different views?
I consider myself neither left or right-wing minded because I see the world as a place needing a healthy balance in everything. The media for a while now has been broadly painted with accusations of delivering false news and yet here once again is a reason for those accusations.
Your organization loses validity when you post facebook comments indicating misleading information to bias your story a certain way. Yes a representative for the gun-lobby was there and yes probably to get some relevant information for it’s members which are often under attack to their personal freedom. Very soon there will likely be an OIC issued that will affect the lives of many law abiding Canadians. An OIC with no democratic debate in the house will be based on information that is not even yet made available to the public. The press briefing is for everyone to get access to any information that can be made available that the public feels they need to know. Balance of freedom and safety is what we should all be trying to achieve. Many of us do not wish to find ourselves one day living in George Orwell’s world.
He was there because you don’t do your job properly.
He shouldn’t have been allowed at all. It’s a PRESS conference. What an insult to the victims and their families. The press HAVE been asking about the type of guns, by the way.
Today’s immediate ban on so-called “assault-style” weapons is a knee-jerk reaction.
Love these people that say questions should not be asked, what a dream world they live in. Just do EXACTLY what ANY person in authority tells you and life will be good??????
Should we be presuming the man was not a reporter? And should we question his use of ‘so-called-military-assault-weapons’? Were they created for military purposes? Have they been redesigned for hunting purposes? Are they more powerful than non-military guns used for hunting deer etc? Were those rifles also invented to be military weapons. I have not done the research so I don’t know the answers. My dad owned guns, shot deer and rabbits and taught my sister and me how to use a 22 (not sure that is what it is called) with bottles and cans as targets. We were good and Dad was proud. I am disposed to give gun owners the benefit of the doubt because I love my Dad. However, like the gun owning farmer from BC on Cross Country Checkup yesterday, Dad would say common sense says no need to have those guns Justin banned on Friday.
Sandra Tomsons: let’s make a list of things Dad would say “common sense says no need (of)”.
Let’s see how far we get before you no longer can make your Dad proud…
Our world is full of things we have no need of. Is it “common sense” to use that as criteria for legislation?
A thread to all gun debate seems to be those that would ban guns also have no trouble banning free speech.