An RCMP police officer testified on Monday that in February 2020 he swore to Gabriel Wortman to return to his vehicle after pulling him for speeding and the 51-year-old immediately presented himself as a “clear threat” walking back to the cruiser in Portapique. NS “The way he approached was very direct, deliberate. He seemed outraged, I had no idea who this person was and why he would behave that way,” Const said. Nick Dorrington said in a public inquiry into the shooting and arson that injured several people, leaving 22 dead, including a pregnant woman and an RCMP officer. The exchange “de-escalated quickly”, however, as soon as Wortman returned to his vehicle and they had a brief conversation, Dorrington testified. “He told me he felt he was being targeted,” he said after Dorington explained that the stand was not triggered by a previous dispute between Wartman and Halifax Regional Police over a parking dispute, the official said. The gunman then showed his affection for the Ford Tauruses, that he had many of them, and collected police tools, but Dorrington said the one-minute conversation did not push him into public safety concerns. Dorrington, who spent 17 years in the military before joining the RCMP in 2015, was stationed in Colchester County and was one of the officers who responded to the mass shooting on the night of April 18 and April 19. That weekend he was on duty after work one day shift. During Monday’s testimony, he was critical of the role of one of the RCMP supervisors in the response and said he did not agree with the decision to send only one team to the Portapique section where people were killed. He also felt he had to be deployed to chase the gunman the next morning. Const. Nick Dorrington said he took a photo of the gunman’s driver’s license and speed radar as evidence in case the driver disputed a ticket in court. (CBC Photo Illustration) After learning he had shot the suspect a few months earlier, Dorington shared photos he took of the gunman’s license and the back of the decommissioned Ford Taurus he was driving. He said the vehicle he had stopped had faded reflective lanes from his time as an RCMP car and that it had a small Canadian flag on the back of the trunk. But, as several other Mounties have previously said in the Massacre Committee, while envisioning what the suspect was driving, he never imagined a fully marked cruiser like the one the gunman wrote and drove during the riot.
Frustrated with the attitude
From midnight to 5 a.m., Dorington and another officer were parked on the highway with two control vehicles, four miles east of the crime scene in Portapic. Dorington testified that he “had a challenge” with the Sergeant. Andy O’Brien’s instruction to settle there because he felt he was “at odds” with his active sniper training. The public inquiry had previously heard that senior officers overseeing the response were concerned that more than one group would be sent to the “hot zone” where the shooter was last seen due to the potential safety risk of officers involved in cross-border or cross-border for-blue “situation where they confused each other about the suspect. The commanders did not have GPS coordinates for general service police on the ground. But Dorrington said that night that he thought the approach should be to use “as many teams as necessary to identify and neutralize the threat” and agreed with commission adviser Roger Burrill that he was disappointed.
Issues with the role of supervisor
During a backstage interview with committee staff, Dorington was critical of O’Brien’s involvement as he was off duty and spoke on the radio from his home.
On Monday, he said that while he has since dismissed criticism of O’Brien’s training, he said his involvement challenged him to know who was responsible.
“Receiving instructions from Sergeant O’Brien, although I’m sure I had good intentions, created … extra time on the radio, which is problematic. And it created, in my opinion, confusion for the management chain.” , Dorington said.
O’Brien and Dorrington worked closely together on Sunday at Portapique. Both remained in the community watching the crime scenes.
As calls for new shootings began in the Wentworth area, Dorington said he was “not allowed” to leave to help with the manhunt, despite submitting his case to O’Brien.
“I felt this given my abilities with previous military training in active theater [along] “with RCMP training, combined with the fact that I had a vehicle without a signal, that I would probably be the best able to leave my current location,” he said.
At one point, Commissioner Leanne Fitch asked Dorrington if he had monitored or instructed to oversee a response to critical events. He said he did not have.
Dorington said he was a sergeant in the military, so he had similar duties to O’Brien and was in charge of a unit in that capacity.
Passing along the observation of the gunman on Sunday morning
While in Portapique on April 19, Dorrington advised his wife to take refuge in their basement. He said information gathered by the gunman’s wife, Lisa Banfield, indicated he had a list of successes and was concerned he could be considered a target as he was the last Mountain to interact with the gunman. Officers interviewed by Banfield in the back of an ambulance had previously testified in the investigation and said that while telling them that her sister in Dartmouth could be in danger, they did not describe a list of successes. Twenty-two people died on April 18 and 19, 2020. Top row from left: Gina Gulett, Down Gulensen, Jolene Oliver, Frank Gulencin, Sean McLeod, Alana Jenkins. Second row: John Zahl, Lisa McCully, Joey Webber, Heidi Stevenson, Heather O’Brien and Jamie Blair. Third row from the top: Kristen Beaton, Lillian Campbell, Joanne Thomas, Peter Bond, Tom Bagley and Greg Blair. Bottom row: Emily Tuck, Joy Bond, Corrie Ellison and Aaron Tuck. (CBC) After learning of the situation, Dorrington’s wife called a friend who happened to notice a marked RCMP cruiser heading south toward the Halifax area on a secondary highway. Dorrington tried to find out if a real cruiser was in the area and then sent it wirelessly to his colleagues after a possible observation. There was a lot of radio talk at the time and Dorington testified that he felt there was a “significant delay” in delivering his message, which he considered “appropriate and high priority”.
The felt equipment was inadequate
Equipment and training was another area that Dorrington dealt with. He said that since the RCMP oversees Canada’s predominantly rural areas, more active sniper training should take place outside, with most focusing on night scenarios. Night-vision goggles or handheld devices to detect heat sources would also be helpful, he said, so that general service officers would not have to wait for specialized resources such as the emergency response team during a crisis. Attorney Sandra McCulloch, who represents many of the family members of those killed, asked Dorrington about the comments he had made earlier in the investigation that he had denied requests for the safety of officers from a brigade commander before April 2020. Those demands included a chair to hold people who could pose a natural danger to themselves or others in the passage, Dorington said. He also called for rotating headlights for vehicles that he said would help illuminate long distances and alleys better than fixed lights on light bars on cruise ships that only move when a vehicle does. A request for push-ups on patrol vehicles – which he said would be cheaper than repairing damage to vehicles – was rejected about a week before two of the squadron’s cruisers were deleted one after the other, he said. MORE TOP STORIES
