N.S. inquiry: Senior RCMP officer pushed to keep secret safety bulletin on killer
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HALIFAX — A deputy commissioner of the RCMP told an inquiry today that in May 2020, less than a month after a gunman killed 22 people in Nova Scotia, he opposed informing the public that a police safety bulletin had raised red flags about the killer nine years before the shootings.
Deputy commissioner Brian Brennan, the RCMP’s second-highest-ranking officer, confirmed that another senior officer suggested during a meeting that the bulletin should be shared with the public, but Brennan rejected the idea.
The bulletin had been distributed to all police forces in the province on May 4, 2011, after an officer with the Truro Police Service learned from a source that Gabriel Wortman wanted to “kill a cop” and was possibly in possession of at least one handgun and several long rifles.
The internal warning was not released publicly until May 29, 2020, when CBC News obtained the document through a freedom of information request.
