The more details that come from the Nova Scotia shooting inquiry sheds more light into the operations of the local RCMP and I think policing in general. This time it was revealed that the police director of strategic communications was glad there was no provincewide alert sent out because she was worried about her officers.

Lia Scanlan, director of strategic communications for the Nova Scotia RCMP, told investigators for the public inquiry into the mass shooting she was “glad” there was no provincewide alert warning about a gunman driving a replica police cruiser.

A transcript of her February interview was released Tuesday at public hearings into the April 2020 killings of 22 people, including RCMP Const. Heidi Stevenson.

If there had been an Alert Ready message broadcast on radio, television and smartphones, Scanlan speculated, “My gut? You would have more dead police officers, because this is rural policing.”

Scanlan said that in a small town like Portapique, where the killing started, people take things into their own hands. Had the public known the shooter was impersonating an RCMP officer, that information would have put RCMP members in harm’s way, she said.

Source: CTV News

And here is the crux of the problem, police officers are taught that their lives (and only their lives) are of the utmost importance…  Sorry, when you go into policing your life specifically is not above the public’s but below and if that’s not something you can accept, you should not be a police officer.  It’s like firefighters refusing to enter a burning building because they’re afraid of dying…

I’d go as far as saying that those who died in the morning are the RCMP’s fault, how many of those people would have stayed home had they known a killer was on the loose.  If the RCMP was afraid for their officers lives, in the communique they should have told residents to stay in their homes and not leave for any reason, I think most people would have heeded that advice.  Or double up your officers and say not to trust any lone officer that you see on the road.

Scanlan said in her interview that Twitter and Facebook are effective. “We’ve always communicated on social media. It’s been a best practice … and show me a better practice in policing? There isn’t one,” she told inquiry interviewers.

The gall of this woman, her and her whole department as well as local RCMP leaders should all be fired, social media effective in rural Nova Scotia, that’s really the best system to use?  It’s ok the federal Liberals are covering up for these guys by banning more and more guns because that’ll solve the problem…