And that raises concerns as the investigation into the mass shooting in Nova Scotia wraps up and the investigation into the horrific recent stabbing in Saskatchewan continues. Ten people died and 18 others were injured on the James Smith Cree Nation and the nearby village of Weldon, Sask., over the Labor Day weekend. Those numbers don’t include Myles Sanderson and Damien Sanderson, who were facing charges related to the rampage before they died last week. Many details of what happened and how the police reacted are not yet known. The Saskatchewan RCMP has asked the Saskatoon Police Service and the Saskatchewan Incident Response Team — the independent citizen-led organization that investigates serious incidents involving police officers in the province — to conduct an external investigation into the circumstances surrounding the incident. Its findings will join a collection of landmark reports that have examined a variety of issues within the RCMP, ranging from crime scene containment and rural policing to the RCMP’s internal culture. A review of the findings of these reports shows that the RCMP has a history of not following its recommendations. Two RCMP vehicles sit near a white pickup truck at the scene where Miles Sanderson was arrested. Sanderson was the suspect in a recent string of stabbings in Saskatchewan. died in police custody. (Chance Lagaden/CBC) “The RCMP is resistant to change,” said Christian Leuprecht, a professor in the political science department at the Royal Military College who has studied RCMP oversight. “It’s tragic because this is the biggest police force in the country, with 17,000 members. It has to set the gold standard.” In 2014, the RCMP brought in retired Assistant Commissioner Alphonse MacNeil to review the events surrounding a shooting spree in Moncton, NB that left three members of the Codiac RCMP detachment dead and two others injured. As part of that review, MacNeil looked at recommendations made after two other violent events — the killings of four RCMP members in Mayerthorpe, Alta. in 2005 and the deaths of two officers during a police chase in Spiritwood, Sask. in 2006. While many of these recommendations were implemented by the RCMP, MacNeil also pointed to policy implementation failures. For example, despite the warning contained in the external report on the Mayerthorpe incident from nine years earlier, MacNeil said that guidelines for securing potential crime scenes were not followed by RCMP officers who responded to the Moncton tragedy.
The RCMP has an ‘ethical contract’ with its officers: report
“The Moncton incident had multiple scenes, however, there was no indication that members were aware of or using the current policy,” MacNeil wrote. RCMP officers in Moncton were not equipped with hard body armor, despite the post-Mayerthorpe report recommending it. MacNeil also pointed out that the delivery of carbine weapons to Codiac RCMP members — short-barreled rifles that have greater range accuracy than sidearms or shotguns — had taken too long despite the findings of previous reports. “Learning from tragedy must be followed by effective addressing of identified deficiencies,” MacNeil wrote in 2014. “The force has an obligation to take action to protect its members and must act promptly to do so, not just for legal reasons but because of the moral contract it has with the members it harms.” A memorial honoring RCMP Constables Fabrice Gevaudan, Dave Ross and Doug Larche, murdered in 2014, in Moncton, NB, on September 29, 2017. A report into their deaths indicated that the RCMP did not implement previous recommendations. (Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press) The RCMP’s failure to act on MacNeil’s recommendations has been highlighted during the Mass Casualty Commission, the inquiry looking into the 2020 mass killing in Nova Scotia — which left 22 people dead — and the RCMP’s handling of it. While the RCMP commander in Nova Scotia at the time, now-retired Assistant Commissioner Lee Bergerman, told the commission the department was “very passionate about implementing” MacNeil’s report, other Mounties testified they were not trained in its recommendations exhibition. Retired Staff Sergeants Jeff West and Kevin Surette, two of the RCMP officers responsible for the response to the 2020 incident, both told the Mass Casualty Commission in May of this year that they did not know whether any of its recommendations MacNeil had indeed been implemented. And Chief. Supt. Chris Leather, one of the top Mounties in the province at the time of the shooting, told the committee he was not aware of any kind of formal training plan based on MacNeil’s report. “I have not seen or sensed an organizational initiative to sustain the momentum that MacNeil’s recommendations would have certainly created in the 2017 time frame,” he said during testimony in July. “Personally, I can’t say that MacNeil’s report and recommendations made a difference in this division.”
Moncton finding ‘could have prevented deaths’: lawyer
Attorney Tara Miller represents the mother-in-law of one of the victims of the 2020 massacre – Kristen Beaton. Beaton, who was pregnant with her second child at the time, was murdered by Gabriel Wortman while on her way to work as a continuing care worker on April 19, 2020. Miller said one of MacNeil’s recommendations — “to identify entry/exit points and major transport routes that should be alerted and monitored in the event of a related crisis” — did not appear to have been followed during the rampage in Nova Scotia, since the gunman was able to travel almost 200 kilometers before he was killed. “That’s what we’re saying would have prevented or could have prevented the deaths,” he said. “This was the direct impact, we believe, of the failure to carry out and implement a recommendation arising from the MacNeil report which had consequences arising from all those who died after the offender traveled to the Truro area.” Kristen Beaton was pregnant when she was shot on the morning of April 19, 2020. (GoFundMe/The Canadian Press) Miller called the disconnect between what senior RCMP commanders believe has been done and what’s happening on the ground a “huge gulf.” She said her client “doesn’t want the legacy of her family member’s death and this commission participation to be a wonderful written document that sits on the shelf” and never receive any action from the RCMP.
“I can’t tell you why”: Lucki
RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki said she doesn’t know why recommendations haven’t been passed on to front-line officers. “Obviously, policies were put in place, and as you point out, some of the policies were not in place at the time of the event in Moncton. And … I can’t give you why, why it happened,” he said. he said when asked questions at the Mass Casualty Commission inquiry last month. “Did we communicate that correctly to the people, to the frontline members? I’m not sure. Maybe we didn’t.” An RCMP spokesperson said the agency knows it needs to do better. “The tragic events continue to highlight the importance of continuous improvements focused on public and police safety,” said Camille Boily-Lavoie. “We recognize that more work needs to be done and we will continue to implement changes to improve the organization and earn the trust of Nova Scotians and all Canadians.” While ahead of the inquest, Lucki also faced questions about why there have been few changes in RCMP policy in the more than 28 months since the Nova Scotia shooting, especially in areas such as education and resources in rural areas. In the immediate aftermath of the Nova Scotia gun massacre, the RCMP came under fire for failing to equip members with GPS software, rejecting descriptions of the killer’s police car, not setting up roadblocks, not locating some bodies for nearly 19 hours and sending out public updates via Twitter. WATCHES | RCMP chief apologizes to families of NS mass shooting victims:
RCMP chief apologizes to families of NS mass shooting victims
Addressing lawyers for the families of Nova Scotia mass shooting victims at the inquest into the tragedy, RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki apologized for the force failing to meet their expectations. But to some, her words rang hollow. The RCMP has also been criticized for failing to act for years on complaints about the gunman – which included reports of domestic violence, death threats against family members and reports that he possessed illegal weapons. “You haven’t instituted any material change,” Josh Bryson, the attorney representing the family of shooting victims Joy and Peter Bond, told Luckey last month during a committee hearing. “You have missed valuable learning opportunities for those cadets who are now members. You could be teaching them your findings, the best practices of what came out of Portapique [Nova Scotia].” A lesson the RCMP appears to have learned from past tragedies regarding the use of the alert preparedness system. The force was widely condemned after the Nova Scotia shooting for issuing public updates via Twitter. The RCMP launched an Alert Ready policy two years later. during the Saskatchewan incident, Mounties sent a dangerous person alert to citizens’ phones. After Luckey finished her two days of testimony before the Mass Accident Commission, its chief commissioner, former Nova Scotia Chief Justice Michael MacDonald, pleaded with her to consider the commission’s final recommendations. “We’ve seen recommendations come and go, and they have to be implemented. Like I said, not for us, but for the memories and all the bad that’s been done,” he said. “I beseech you passionately as a person in a…
