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Police say at least 16 people plus the gunman were killed in multiple shootings across several communities in rural Nova Scotia between Saturday night and Sunday morning. An RCMP officer, Constable Heidi Stevenson, was among the dead. Another officer was in hospital recovering from injuries. It was the deadliest mass shooting in Canadian history.
RCMP officers stand on Portapique Beach Road after Gabriel Wortman, a suspected shooter, was taken into custody and was later reported deceased according to local media, in Portapique, Nova Scotia, Canada April 19, 2020. REUTERS/John MorrisJOHN MORRIS/The Associated Press
What we know
The first gunshots were fired late Saturday night, in the tiny beach village of Portapique, about 40 kilometres west of Truro. The last shots came 14 hours later and about 90 kilometres away, in the parking lot of an Irving Big Stop gas station in the community of Enfield.
In the tense and devastating hours that passed between, people both connected and unconnected to the shooter would be killed in a rampage that left the province littered with crime scenes and a yet-untallied number of victims.
“Some of these crime scenes, we’ve not even begun to process,” RCMP criminal operations officer Chief Superintendent Chris Leather, speaking at a sombre news conference in Dartmouth early Sunday evening.
He described the number of victims as “in excess of 10,” but the RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki later told The Globe and Mail in an interview that there were 13 victims, plus the shooter, and the possibility it could be higher still.
“I don’t want to say that [the number] is not going to change," she said. "But hopefully it won’t.”
Within hours, the number of victims had risen to 16.
The killer has been identified as Gabriel Wortman, a 51-year-old denturist from Dartmouth.
The suspect
Wortman, the man who impersonated a police officer during the deadly rampage, displayed an obsession with law enforcement dating to his high school years.
Nathan Staples, who lives outside the nearby community of Great Village, said Wortman was obsessed with the police, and that his home in Portapique was a “shrine” to the RCMP. A few months ago, he went to Mr. Staples’s house, asking whether he would sell his used police cruiser sitting in the front lawn.
“He was one of those freaky guys, he was really into police memorabilia,” Staples said.
Heidi Stevenson
Stevenson, who hails from Nova Scotia, was with the RCMP for 23 years. She was a married mother of two children, aged 10 and 13. At one point, she was the media spokesperson for the province’s RCMP force. RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki said she doesn’t know the circumstances of the fallen officer’s death, but Constable Stevenson was responding to the “active shooter incident.”
Constable Stevenson’s husband, Dean Stevenson, teaches at a Halifax-area high school, said a statement from the President of the Nova Scotia Teachers’ Union. “Losing one of our own – it’s like a family member. But also in a province like Nova Scotia, Const. Heidi Stevenson, she would be part of that community. Her kids would be going to school in that community. My heart’s broken," Commissioner Lucki said.
Names of the victims were still emerging late Sunday, and in some cases, people were still waiting to find out about their loved ones in Portapique.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Constable Heidi Stevenson, who was shot and killed by a gunman April 19, 2020, poses for an undated official photo. RCMP in Nova Scotia/Handout via REUTERS. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES. THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY.RCMP IN NOVA SCOTIA/Reuters
Read more: Timeline of Nova Scotia Mass shooting
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MOMENT IN TIME
PARALYMPICS -- Drummondville's Doug Lyons grimaces as he extends his arm in the discuss competition at the Olympiad for the Disabled, August 5, 1976. For a brief moment today, Doug Lyons had the disabled world record in the discus but then he lost it to man and his dog. Although he is still recovering from a touch of bursitis in one shoulder, the former policeman hurled the discus, against the wind, a record-setting 22.12 metres. Then about 20 minutes later, up came Bob Tusa from Jackson, Minn., who with an unique throwing style, hit the 23.10 metre mark. Photo by James Lewcun / The Globe and Mail. Originally published August 6, 1976JAMES LEWCUN/The Globe and Mail
After the Second World War, a spinal-injury doctor at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in England found that competitive sports helped injured members of the armed forces recover faster. In 1948, that doctor, Ludwig Guttmann, proved his point with the Stoke Mandeville Games for the Paralyzed, which featured 16 injured vets competing in archery. Over the years, more athletes with physical disabilities found they, too, could compete at high levels alongside athletes with similar disabilities – provided it was a level playing field. By 1960, 400 athletes from 23 countries were taking part in the multisport quadrennial games. In the photo above, by The Globe and Mail’s James Lewcun, Doug Lyons of Drummondville, Que., heaves the discus during Toronto’s Olympiad for the Disabled in August of 1976. Today, thousands of athletes from more than 100 countries take part in the Paralympics, which are run in conjunction with the Summer and Winter Games. Philip King
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