First 3 officers on scene of N.S. mass shooting set to testify at inquiry

The public inquiry examining Nova Scotia's April 2020 mass shooting will hear for the first time Monday live testimony from police officers who were on the ground in Portapique, N.S., where the killings began.

Some officers have criticized command decisions in interviews with the commission heading the inquiry, with one saying there seemed to be "too many cooks in the kitchen" the night of April 18, 2020.

The only officers to enter the Portapique subdivision for the first 90 minutes of the RCMP response, during which time they heard gunshots and discovered burning buildings, were constables Stuart Beselt, Aaron Patton and Adam Merchant.

All three will testify together under oath in a witness panel, and have said during separate interviews with the Mass Casualty Commission that they were prepared to do so.

"If I can prevent other people from having to go through this process and that, I would be more than happy," Beselt said in an interview with the commission in July 2021.

The mandate of the joint federal-provincial inquiry includes looking at the response of police during the 13-hour rampage on April 18-19, 2020, where a gunman disguised as a Mountie killed 22 people, including a pregnant woman, in several rural Nova Scotia communities.

The commission decided on the witness panel model after days of arguments in early March by lawyers for the victims' families, the RCMP and the union that represents front-line members about which officers should be called to testify. 

Beselt was the acting corporal who "assumed decision-making responsibilities for the first responders at the early stages of the call," according to his commission interview.

In April 2020, Beselt had been with the RCMP for 24 years, Merchant for 13, and Patton had been an officer for three years.

All three were using Google Maps on their personal phones to find their way around in the dark, since they didn't know the Portapique area. Patton said from those maps, it appeared there was only "one way in, one way out," and Beselt felt like they were in the best position to focus on the shooter while the "next wave" of officers dealt with containment.

When asked by the commission what could have helped his team that night, Beselt said he's played the scenario out in his mind often — but "I don't know if anybody could have gone in there and done anything differently."

Merchant told the commission he felt like "they should have sent someone in earlier" to get the children of shooting victims Jamie and Greg Blair and Lisa McCully. The children were left to wait in a home for two hours while the three first officers were pulled away to respond to more fires and what they thought were gunshots.

He also said there "was definitely too much chatter on the radio" from senior officers, and "in the future, like there shouldn't be three guys … running command." Merchant said he was aware of staff sergeants Brian Rehill, Andy O'Brien and Al Carroll being involved in the early response and it seemed like "too many cooks in the kitchen."

Merchant also suggested there could have been more boots on the ground in that first hour, such as a second team that could help the first team cover roads in the community.