(Halifax) An RCMP officer who had forged ties with the perpetrator of the Nova Scotia shooting told the public inquiry on Tuesday that he did not consider Gabriel Wortman a friend, even though he had visited his country home about 15 times between 2007 and 2011.
Posted at 3:27 p.m.
Testifying under oath via video link, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Constable Greg Wiley told the commission that those following the case may have the wrong perception of the nature of his connection to the killer, considering the number of encounters they have had.
Constable Wiley said Wortman, who killed 22 people in April 2020, was something of a “community contact”: the officer saw him as an ally of the police, with whom he cooperated and whose information could be useful, in an unofficial capacity.
The RCMP officer said Wortman was not an official law enforcement source. He added he got to know him when the man called the police to report a property crime in 2007 or 2008 – long before the April 2020 killings, he said.
Constable Wiley told the commission that when he visited Wortman’s home in Portapique, he was always on duty and in uniform. He clarified that their interactions usually lasted less than three quarters of an hour – most, in fact, lasted 10 or 15 minutes, he said.
The inquest heard that in June 2010, ten years before the shooting, Constable Wiley was ordered to investigate allegations that Wortman had threatened to kill his parents; Police officer Wiley’s investigation ultimately came to nothing.
On the evening of April 18, 2020, Wortman assaulted his spouse before fatally shooting 13 people in Portapique, while disguised as an RCMP officer and driving a replica federal police car.
The following day, he killed nine other people – including an RCMP officer and a pregnant woman – before being shot dead by two police officers at a gas station in Enfield, about 100 kilometers south of Portapique.