Const. Vicky Colford, who has since retired, answered questions by affidavit was introduced as a report by the Mass Casualty Commission earlier this month. Her statement sheds light on how police lost key information about a possible escape route believed to have been used by the gunman to avoid police stationed less than a kilometer away. On April 18, 2020, Colford was the fourth RCMP officer to arrive the night a gunman killed 13 neighbors and set fire to several homes. Family members of those killed the next morning wondered why police did not do more to disperse the community and why it took so long for them to realize that the gunman could have gone on a private road bordering a blueberry field. . The public investigation that examined the tragedy proceeded with surveillance footage, spoke to witnesses and found that the gunman probably drove along the stadium and came out on Highway 2 a few hundred meters from the main entrance between 10:41 p.m. and 22:45 AT. 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) By the time Colford arrived at 10:32 p.m., two police officers had walked into the community. After learning that a third party would join them, he decided to check the vehicles at the entrance and ensure that Andrew and Katie MacDonald, who had been shot, received medical attention. At 10:48 p.m., Colford told police radio: “If you want to take a look at the map, they tell us there is a road, a road that one could take, before here. If they know better. the streets “. But at least three senior officers who oversaw the response testified that they had never heard her broadcast, and Colford herself said she did not realize she had succeeded.
“No memory” of a radio broadcast
As soon as she reviewed the investigative documents, she found out and “did not remember” that she had been told about a way out or that the woman she spoke to recognized the path associated with it, Colford wrote in an affidavit. The MacDonalds left in separate ambulances and Colford stayed with Katie MacDonald for about 45 minutes. “Katie MacDonald was very upset and did not speak clearly. I was trying to keep her calm while watching our environment for the threat,” she said. An aerial map of Portapique from May 2020 with street names added by the Mass Casualty Commission. (Committee on Mass Accidents) Her focus was “trying to keep my head on a swivel handle to watch and know” amid nearby fires, gunfire and active sniper fire, Colford said. She said her case – based on the transcript reading – was that she made the broadcast to pass on new information to the risk manager overseeing the response and to anyone else who was part of it. She said most of her communications that night were made by radio, but she also spoke with senior officials by telephone.
Concern about ambushes, vehicle control
Another Portapique resident, Harlan Rushton, told the committee he spoke to a Mountie woman as he left, telling her something like “You know there’s another way out” and the officer agreed. Colford told the commission she had no recollection of that exchange, but checked about 10 vehicles looking for signs of gunfire, guns, gas canisters and anything suspicious. An RCMP officer talks to a local resident before escorting them home to a roadblock in Portapique on April 22, 2020. On the evening of April 18, Const. Vicky Caulford was at the entrance to Portapique Beach Road. (Andrew Vaughan / The Canadian Press) Her goal, she explained, was to get people out quickly, so the exchanges only lasted a few seconds. He said he scanned the backs of trucks and hatchbacks and had at least one driver blow up their trunk. “I had no idea where the perpetrator was… The possibility of an ambush was always on my mind,” he wrote. “Every time a vehicle left, it distracted me from my surroundings and I did not want anyone to be shot while I was stopping.”
No need to testify
Lawyers representing the victims’ families had asked Colford to appear as a witness and the commissioners they initially said they would summon herlater provided Colford with accommodation that could provide a written statement instead of an oral testimony. The National Police Federation had submitted the request and submitted confidential personal information that was examined by the commissioners. The attorneys representing the participants were able to ask any questions they had about Colford, including requests for clarification from their previous statements to the RCMP during a interview a few days after the shootings. Answered 63 questions from the committee.
I felt like a “sitting duck”
Colford and Cpl. Natasha Jamieson spent most of the night parked near the mailboxes at the top of Portapique Road. Standing around a colleague’s SUV, they tried to cover each other – Colford with a shotgun and Jamieson with her service pistol. No officer had completed rifle training. “I really felt like a sitting duck, as I could not see much outside my area due to a lack of street lights,” Caulford told the committee. Colford had previously provided support to a colleague – Const. Nick Dorrington – who pulled the gun for speeding in February 2020, but had no previous interactions with him and did not know the community so well. Dorington is scheduled to testify in the inquiry on Monday. MORE TOP STORIES
