David Westlake was speaking to an RCMP officer when two others pulled up in a car and opened fire, reveal new details Monday
On the morning of April 19, 2020, the emergency management coordinator was at the firehall in Onslow, N.S., as the fire chief was welcoming people evacuated from nearby Portapique, N.S., where a gunman had killed 13 people the night before.
Commission counsel Roger Burrill displays a photo that shows the stretch of Plains Road where Heather O’Brien and Kristen Beaton were murdered by Gabriel Wortman, at the Mass Casualty Commission inquiry in Halifax on March 31, 2022.The two shooters were RCMP officers who mistakenly assumed Westlake was the killer, mainly because he was wearing a yellow-and-orange reflective vest that matched the police description of what the suspect was wearing.
As for Westlake, he said he still couldn’t believe he escaped with his life, though the close call had not hurt his sense of humour. The Serious Incident Response Team, Nova Scotia’s police watchdog agency, released a report in March 2021 that cleared both officers of any wrongdoing. It concluded the officers had reasonable grounds to believe they had the killer in their sights, and that they discharged their weapons “to prevent further deaths or serious injuries.” The independent agency also drew attention to the jammed radios.
As well, eight people living near the firehall told investigators about what they saw that day, and none of them reported hearing anyone say, “Show your hands!”Article content
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