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A man wearing a police uniform was furious as he drove through the Canadian province of Nova Scotia on Sunday, killing 13 people, including a police officer. Authorities said the alleged shooter was also dead.
Several of the dead were found inside and outside a house in the small rural town of Portapique, about 100 kilometers north of Halifax. Police began advising city residents, who were already locked up due to the coronavirus pandemic, to close their doors and stay in their basements. Several houses in the area were also burned down.
ANDREW VAUGHAN / THE CANADIAN PRESS / VIA AP
Workers at the medical examiner’s office remove a body from a gas bar in Enfield, Nova Scotia.
Police identified the man believed to be the shooter as Gabriel Wortman, 51, who was believed to be living part-time in Portapique. Authorities said he disguised himself as a police officer in uniform at one point and made his car look like a Royal Canadian Mounted Police cruiser.
Wortman was arrested at a service station in Enfield, outside of Halifax. Police later announced that he was dead.
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“This is one of the most senseless acts of violence in the history of our province,” said Nova Scotia Prime Minister Stephen McNeil. He said it was an additional “heavy burden” amid efforts to contain the new coronavirus.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police spokesman Daniel Brien confirmed that 13 people had been killed, as had the shooter. He said he could not rule out that the death toll could still increase. That already makes it one of the worst shootings in Canadian history.
TIM KROCHAK / AP
Officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police prepare to arrest a suspect at a service station in Enfield, Nova Scotia.
Mass shootings are relatively rare in Canada. The country revised its gun control laws after the country’s worst mass shooting in 1989, when gunman Marc Lepine killed 14 women and himself at the Ecole Polytechnique University in Montreal. It is now illegal to possess an unregistered pistol or any type of rapid fire weapon. Canada also requires training, a personal risk assessment, two referrals, spousal notification, and a criminal background check to purchase a weapon.
“We believe that he is a person responsible for all the killings and that he only moved through the northern part of the province and committed what appears to be several killings,” said RCMP chief superintendent Chris Leather.
TIM KROCHAK / AP
Officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police prepare to arrest a suspect after an uproar. The suspect later died.
Police have not provided a motive for the attack, but Leather said many of the victims did not know the shooter.
“The fact that this individual had a uniform and a police car at his disposal certainly speaks to the fact that it is not a random act,” Leather said.
Leather said they would investigate whether the attack had anything to do with the coronavirus pandemic, but no link has been found so far.
The dead officer was identified as Officer Heidi Stevenson, a mother of two and a 23-year-old force veteran. Another officer was also injured.
Leather said there was an exchange of fire between the suspect and police. There were half a dozen police vehicles at the scene of a service station where the suspect was shot. A yellow police tape surrounded the gas pumps, and a large silver SUV was under investigation.
Police said earlier Sunday that the suspect was driving a car that looked like a police vehicle and was wearing a police uniform, but later said they “were believed to be driving a small silver Chevrolet SUV.” They said he is not an employee or official of RCMP.
ANDREW VAUGHAN / THE CANADIAN PRESS / VIA AP
Police block the road in Debert, Nova Scotia on Monday (NZT).
Cpl. Lisa Croteau, a spokeswoman for the provincial force, said police received a call about “a person with a firearm” around 10:30 pm Saturday and that the investigation “turned into an active shooting investigation.”
“My heart goes out to everyone affected in what is a terrible situation,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Area resident Christine Mills said it had been a terrifying night for the small town, with armed officers patrolling the streets. In the morning, helicopters flew over in search of the suspect. “It is stressful because you don’t know if someone has gone crazy and is going to knock on your door,” he said.
Tom Taggart, a legislator representing the Portapique area in Colchester Township, said the quiet community has been rocked.
“This is an absolutely wonderful, calm and peaceful community and the idea that this could happen in our community is incredible,” Taggart said by phone from his home on the nearby Bass River.
A Gabriel Wortman is listed as a dentist, a dentist, in the town of Dartmouth, near Halifax, according to the Nova Scotia Society of Dentists website. A suspicious photo released by the RCMP appears to be of the same person seen in a video that was interviewed about dentures by CTV Atlantic in 2014.
Mills also said that Wortman was known locally as someone who divided his time between a residence in Halifax and a residence in Portapique.
Taggart said he did not know Wortman well, but spoke to him several times when he telephoned about municipal matters.
Taggart described knowing Wortman’s “lovely big house” on Portapique Beach Road.
