RCMP wanted 2011 tip about N.S. gunman to 'go away': Truro police chief

Truro's police chief felt the RCMP was resistant to his force's plans to release a 2011 bulletin warning that the gunman who went on a shooting rampage in 2020 had weapons and threatened to "kill a cop," according to documents released by the public inquiry examining the tragedy. 

Two weeks after Gabriel Wortman killed 22 people, including a pregnant woman and an RCMP officer, CBC News requested all of the Truro Police Service's records related to the mass shooting through freedom-of-information legislation. 

Chief Dave MacNeil told investigators with the Mass Casualty Commission he had informed the RCMP in advance that his legal advisors had determined they were bound by legislation to release their files. In response, he said two of the most senior Mounties in the province, Chief Supt. Chris Leather and Chief Supt. Janis Gray, arranged a call. 

"To me [the message] was, this bulletin needs to not surface.. We need to explain this bulletin away," MacNeil said in his interview with the public inquiry.

"I felt as if, I'm not going to say pressured, but I felt… if the bulletin could go away they would be very happy. And I wasn't able to do that because that's not the way I do business."

MacNeil, who the commission interviewed in August 2021, said he felt it was "not ethically and morally correct" to withhold the public records requested by CBC and Global. He said he declined the RCMP's request to review their files in that May 2020 call. 

The police chief declined to speak with CBC News Thursday, citing his participation in the inquiry. He expects to be called as a witness in June. 

The RCMP told CBC News it would be inappropriate to comment on specific documents or testimony while the inquiry is underway. 

In an emailed statement, Cpl. Chris Marshall didn't specifically address the May call but said Leather and Gray got in touch with Truro earlier, on April 24, because they were looking "for more details, including the context of the information in the bulletin and whether additional information was available."

The records released to CBC in May 2020 included transcripts of dispatch communications on April 18 and 19, bulletins circulated by the RCMP about the active shooter on April 19 and emails that refer to an anonymous tip that Cpl. Greg Densmore received in 2011 about Gabriel Wortman.

Densmore had sent an "officer safety bulletin" to other police agencies at the time warning them he'd heard from an unnamed source that Wortman had several guns and a source said he was experiencing some mental issues. 

Prior to CBC publishing a story about the 2011 tip, the RCMP had not mentioned it publicly — though records show municipal police forces flagged the bulletin in the hours after the gunman's name became public on April 19 and the RCMP began looking into it within days. 

MacNeil said the release of the tip became a "contentious" issue and that the RCMP wanted him and other municipal chiefs to be part of a joint press conference about it. 

"It became very clear to the three chiefs that this was about 'how do I move the narrative and put it on someone else.' And we weren't playing ball," he told the commission.