Active Shooter In NS. April 19 2020

[Eye In The Sky]

There is a comfy deniability for local and provincial authorities with the RCMP.

Back when it happened, people got fixated on the “no Alert was sent out”. No one wanted to hear the fact that the provincial EMO Dept held the sole set of keys to that system. And that they also run the 911 system and had info on what was going on. And still didn’t put the alert out.

 

[brihard]

Given the rural nature of the area, I'm not confident any police force would have had much more immediate resourcing to throw at the situation at that particular time of night on a weekend. Rural policing is necessarily spread out, and response times are long. The RCMP happens to do most rural policing, but not all. The

OPP faced similar challenges in the triple murders perpetrated by Basil Borutski in Wilno, ON a few years back. I was fortunate to be able to sit in on a 'lessons learned' session focusing on major critical incidents, and that was one of the ones looked at. The OPP were facing a manhunt over a large area, with resources thin on the ground and backup coming from a distance, with a fragmented picture of what was going on. Similar lengthy history of being a dangerous and unstable man.

Timeline: From 1982 to 2015, a history of Basil Borutski

Basil Joseph Borutski, born October, 17, 1957

ottawacitizen.com

 

[RangerRay]

If a rich province like British Columbia thought ditching the Mounties was too expensive 10 years ago, I don’t know how Nova Scotia is going to afford it. Never mind, as has been pointed out, many of the failures are directly attributable to politicians nickel and diming existing police forces and EMO bureaucracy.

Look at all the strum-und-drang going on in Surrey. It’s the second largest city in the province only by 100,000 people, yet they can’t transition from RCMP to municipal force without drama. Because of the last mayor’s lack of transparency the new mayor wanting to blow everything up and two different forces trying to justify their existence, it’s turning into a dog’s breakfast. When you look at the turnout of both elections, neither mayor had a mandate for such a drastic change.

Im sure another reason BC decided to stick with the RCMP is if things go pear-shaped again, the Province can throw the Mounties under the bus again.

 

[Booter]

I think the complexity of the organizations now- the logistics is too large. 50 years ago no problem. Cars. Guns. Cops. Gradual growth.

Now you need to flip a switch on so many technologies and be mindful for millions upon millions of dollars. It’s not an easy mission now.

 

[RedFive]

Looking into my crystal ball- they’ll be shocked by cost- and they ll continue with the RCMP. They’ll use the proposal to create a letter of expectation for visibility in the community. Which will translate to a car being in the community for so many hours. This will go for a year or two before it falls
Out of practice again.

That's what they said in Surrey, and now my watch has more SPS members than RCMP.

 

[Booter]

That's what they said in Surrey, and now my watch has more SPS members than RCMP.

We ll see. You and me. Gentleman’s bet.

 

[RedFive]

We ll see. You and me. Gentleman’s bet.

We betting on Surrey or NS?

 

[brihard]

We ll see. You and me. Gentleman’s bet.

If you’re betting against SPS getting the nod from the province, I’ll take that bet for a beer if our paths cross.

 

[Booter]

We betting on Surrey or NS?

N.S.! My god man. LOL

 

[BrianWL]

I don’t understand why the feds subsidize municipal or provincial policing at all. It’s squarely a provincial responsibility. Maintaining national services of use to all police, like CPIC, PSP, the fingerprint section, CISC? Sure. But why is cops on the road in Colchester or Surrey or North Battleford or Thompson, but not Kingston or New Westminster or Halifax or Winnipeg, something that gets federal dollars by default? I don’t have my head wrapped around that.

Empire building coupled with lack of budget during depression years, had something to do with the contracted stuff.........

 

[RedFive]

N.S.! My god man. LOL

Deal. If NS does a full report on dumping the RCMP and keeps them anyways, I'll owe you one (1) beer, redeemable in the establishment of your choice should we ever cross paths.

 

[Booter]

I’m a divorced senior NCO- I’m screenshotting this and putting it in my wallet.

 

[dapaterson]

"Divorced senior NCO" is redundant.

 

[lenaitch]

I think we probably need to delineate what we need/ask police to do and create a reenforced social services program to deal with a lot of our social/mental health issues.

True, but for the times it still doesn't work, we either involve the police or create a parallel deployed 24/7 'social services/mental health response team' which wouldn't be without its own significant cost.

I don’t understand why the feds subsidize municipal or provincial policing at all. It’s squarely a provincial responsibility. Maintaining national services of use to all police, like CPIC, PSP, the fingerprint section, CISC? Sure. But why is cops on the road in Colchester or Surrey or North Battleford or Thompson, but not Kingston or New Westminster or Halifax or Winnipeg, something that gets federal dollars by default? I don’t have my head wrapped around that.

Equalization payments, just a different line item.

Given the rural nature of the area, I'm not confident any police force would have had much more immediate resourcing to throw at the situation at that particular time of night on a weekend. Rural policing is necessarily spread out, and response times are long. The RCMP happens to do most rural policing, but not all. The

OPP faced similar challenges in the triple murders perpetrated by Basil Borutski in Wilno, ON a few years back. I was fortunate to be able to sit in on a 'lessons learned' session focusing on major critical incidents, and that was one of the ones looked at. The OPP were facing a manhunt over a large area, with resources thin on the ground and backup coming from a distance, with a fragmented picture of what was going on. Similar lengthy history of being a dangerous and unstable man.

Timeline: From 1982 to 2015, a history of Basil Borutski

Basil Joseph Borutski, born October, 17, 1957

ottawacitizen.com

If I recall correctly, the assigned incident commander started out trying to coordinate the response via phone/radio from his home detachment in Perth.


******

I do wish the County well in its endeavours, but I think when they see the bill and tell the taxpayers what their property taxes will be during at least the initial years, they will spook. Municipalities in Ontario, both those under contract to the OPP or another municipality as well as those with their own department, go through this exercise on a regular basis and the bottom line is usually always the bottom line. A few do seem to be able to overcome it. Deep River comes to mind - they seem to be willing to keep their own PS when municipalities much larger cannot.

According to the Interweb, Cumberland County is about 30,500 people spread over about 4300sqkm. I don't know if Amherst (9,400) is part of the County but I imagine their police service would fancy itself as the nucleus of any new county service. Just going but average police/population numbers, they would be looking at having to fund a minimum of 73 cops, not counting support.

 

[Booter]

True, but for the times it still doesn't work, we either involve the police or create a parallel deployed 24/7 'social services/mental health response team' which wouldn't be without its own significant cost.


Equalization payments, just a different line item.


If I recall correctly, the assigned incident commander started out trying to coordinate the response via phone/radio from his home detachment in Perth.


******

I do wish the County well in its endeavours, but I think when they see the bill and tell the taxpayers what their property taxes will be during at least the initial years, they will spook. Municipalities in Ontario, both those under contract to the OPP or another municipality as well as those with their own department, go through this exercise on a regular basis and the bottom line is usually always the bottom line. A few do seem to be able to overcome it. Deep River comes to mind - they seem to be willing to keep their own PS when municipalities much larger cannot.

According to the Interweb, Cumberland County is about 30,500 people spread over about 4300sqkm. I don't know if Amherst (9,400) is part of the County but I imagine their police service would fancy itself as the nucleus of any new county service. Just going but average police/population numbers, they would be looking at having to fund a minimum of 73 cops, not counting support.

73 cops and support staff plus logistics-

15 million budget-ish

 

[lenaitch]

73 cops and support staff plus logistics-

15 million budget-ish

A line item in the County's 2022/23 budget shows $5.13Mn for RCMP contract, so about 3x (ish). It seems the Town of Amherst is not part of the County governance.

 

[Weinie]

True, but for the times it still doesn't work, we either involve the police or create a parallel deployed 24/7 'social services/mental health response team' which wouldn't be without its own significant cost.


Equalization payments, just a different line item.


If I recall correctly, the assigned incident commander started out trying to coordinate the response via phone/radio from his home detachment in Perth.


******

I do wish the County well in its endeavours, but I think when they see the bill and tell the taxpayers what their property taxes will be during at least the initial years, they will spook. Municipalities in Ontario, both those under contract to the OPP or another municipality as well as those with their own department, go through this exercise on a regular basis and the bottom line is usually always the bottom line. A few do seem to be able to overcome it. Deep River comes to mind - they seem to be willing to keep their own PS when municipalities much larger cannot.

According to the Interweb, Cumberland County is about 30,500 people spread over about 4300sqkm. I don't know if Amherst (9,400) is part of the County but I imagine their police service would fancy itself as the nucleus of any new county service. Just going but average police/population numbers, they would be looking at having to fund a minimum of 73 cops, not counting support.

It is the major town that makes up the county, and the seat of municipal gov't. My uncle is the recently retired CAO, and a good friend the recently retired Chief of Police. They have strong opinions on this issue.

 

[brihard]

According to the Interweb, Cumberland County is about 30,500 people spread over about 4300sqkm. I don't know if Amherst (9,400) is part of the County but I imagine their police service would fancy itself as the nucleus of any new county service.

Why frig with it if it works for their town? Adding a large, low density rural catchment with its own additional municipal governments would really muck some things up for them, if things have otherwise been going fine.

 

[Weinie]

Why frig with it if it works for their town? Adding a large, low density rural catchment with its own additional municipal governments would really muck some things up for them, if things have otherwise been going fine.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova...ng-following-rcmp-staffing-concerns-1.6401452

Some people have their own biases/agendas.

 

[brihard]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova...ng-following-rcmp-staffing-concerns-1.6401452

Some people have their own biases/agendas.

Sorry, I wasn’t clear, I meant Amherst Police expanding to cover outside of the town, if things are already fine for Amherst. Obviously the county has concerns with the RCMP service it receives. I would envision that more as a provincial police service problem, not an ‘Amherst police expands to take over rural’ problem.

Which biases/agendas are you alluding to? I don’t know that local area or politics, or who might want what.