Murphy’s Logic: Public safety over police secrecy

After at first saying she wouldn’t have done anything differently, the RCMP’s strategic communications officer has finally conceded there were serious communications problems during the April 2020 Nova Scotia mass murder.

The evidence of the problems was clear in the first RCMP tweet about the events in Portapique, which was both slow in coming and at least misleading, if not intentionally dishonest.

What was characterized as a firearms complaint was, in fact, a mass murder and the RCMP knew it. The conscious choice to understate the severity of the situation may have prevented widespread panic, but it also blunted the widespread concern and self-defence measures, which the truth surely would have provoked.

And this was not the only time the RCMP endangered the public by not telling the truth. In deciding not to quickly reveal that the shooter was masquerading as an RCMP officer, in a look-alike police cruiser, the RCMP opted to put the safety of its officers ahead of the safety of the public.

Even that was not enough to protect Const. Heidi Stevenson. And while truth might have endangered other police officers, they at least knew what was going on and who to look for, and had weapons to defend themselves.

The misrepresentations continued even after the shooter was killed. The RCMP said he was in custody, when he was really dead.  Even hours after his death, the RCMP did not accurately state the magnitude of his carnage.  

Journalists know from first-hand experience that police don’t always tell them the truth and that police believe they have the right to lie, if they consider it in the interest of law enforcement.

They also withhold and understate information and feel they have the same right to do so. The release of information often comes through junior information officers who are often unable to answer questions because the facts are not shared with them. They know only what they’ve seen or what they’ve been told.

Police now routinely refuse to provide even basic information, citing privacy laws to justify their silence - secrecy.  

We don’t want police to publish information which criminals can use to aid and abet their crimes or evade capture, but we also can’t have them sacrificing wholesale public safety in the interest of protecting a police operation.  

That seems to be what happened in this case. We don’t need a report from a public inquiry to demand the fundamental changes that prevent it from happening again.