Thread by @Tim_Bousquet

I am the proceedings of the Mass Casualty Commission (the public inquiry into the mass murders of April 18/19, 2020). The discussion can at times be graphic and disturbing; to avoid that, you can mute the hashtag #MCC

Today, #MCC staff will present the foundational document "RCMP command post, Operational Communications Centre and command decisions," which will be followed by the testimony of Staff Sergeant Steve Halliday

The presenter didn't introduce herself, but she's commission lawyer Anna Mancini. #MCC

The foundational documents is 321 pages long, and has about ten thousand pages of supporting documents, but Mancini assures us her presentation will be short #MCC

Mancini points out that Steve Halliday was the *acting* Operations Officer in the Northeast Nova Command Structure in April 2020. Also, Addie MacCallum was acting second in command. #MCC

There's going to be a lot of detail that I'm going to skip over for this thread. It's in the document, and we'll get more detailed in our reporting. #MCC

Mancini really was brief. Halliday is coming to testify now #MCC

Halliday is now retired. #MCC

Halliday trained as a crisis negotiator in 2010 at the RCMP training college. I want to know what that training involved #MCC

Halliday was told that the Portapique call may have involved Cst. Dave Lilly. He says there have been other RCMP officers going through mental health crises, and he was concerned this was the case #MCC

Sorry, Dave Lilly was a Sergeant, not a Constable. Halliday's concern was noted in his notes #MCC

Understand that the Risk Manager was Brian Rehill, and this call came at 10:35pm Saturday night. So at that point they thought "a marked car, like a police car is involved" #MCC

Halliday said he called Lilly directly. Lilly answered the phone right away, and it was "evident by his demeanour" that Lilly was not involved in whatever was going on in Portapique #MCC

Halliday: "there's always the thought that it's a marked car, but not Dave Lilly, but somebody else" #MCC

Halliday says he pieced all this together from radio traffic #MCC

Mancini asks if it surprised Halliday that there were two people overseeing the containment in Portapique. Halliday says he thought they were coordinating together well #MCC

Dave Lilly called Halliday and told him about GW's behaviour Lisa McCully. (Dave Lilly's wife and McCully worked together.) Lilly told Halliday that GW had very recently "freaked out" McCully #MCC

Mancini asks Halliday about this part of his statement to the #MCC. She's attempting to understand how the command structure worked

Halliday said it wasn't until he arrived that he realized O'Brien was working from home. As we've previously reported, O'Brien had had "a couple of glasses of wine" #MCC halifaxexaminer.ca/featured/a-cou…

We're breaking for 15 #MCC

We're back. Mancini asks Halliday why he requested air services. Halliday says he thought the helicopter in Moncton, which had infrared capability, would be helpful in finding the killer, but it was unavailable. #MCC

Halliday was also told that a DND helicopter was also unavailable, and that the Lands & Forestry helicopter couldn't fly until daylight. #MCC

Halliday arrived at the command post at about 2:20am on Sunday. "Through the course of the evening" he was able to review both computer maps and hand-draw maps of Portapique that showed where houses were burned and victims found. #MCC

Halliday saw this map. The red part is the "hot zone." He doesn't know who made the map or put the names on it #MCC

He also saw this hand-drawn map #MCC

Mancini asks Halliday if the mapping was "rudimentary." He saws they also had Google Satellite maps #MCC

Halliday says there were all sorts of "stimuli" — ongoing fires, explosions, suspected gunfire so he assumed the killer was sill in Portapique. He saw Brown Loop and the blueberry field road on the satellite map, and wanted someone posted there, that was around 4am #MCC

He says he didn't think a car could get out that way, but someone could get out on foot or on an ATV #MCC

There's discussion of removing the children from the scene. There's a fascinating back-and-forth between the OCC operator and a woman named Julie with Children Services #MCC

OCC called Child Services to get someone to care for the children, but Julie wanted lots of information — the names and ages of the children, the status of their parents, etc — before she would send anyone #MCC

The OCC operator was exasperated, and said in essence, 'we don't know any of that for certain but we need children taken care of!' and became quite heated... #MCC

Finally, Julie relented and sent someone who met the children at about the time they arrived at hospital #MCC

Halliday was aware that Andrew MacDonald had said that GW fled south on Portapique Beach Road away from the police roadblock, in a Taurus, and MacDonald had said there was no way out of the community (I'm checking that last point) #MCC

Halliday goes over territory we've heard before: they knew of 3 Taurus owned by GW, they found 2 burned out in Portapique and 1 was accounted for in Dartmouth #MCC

Mancini: we know that the children gave detailed description of the car, and Andrew MacDonald said there was a decalled car #MCC

Halliday and Mancini are disagreeing if Andrew MacDonald said there was a second route out. Mancini said MacDonald gave that info at about 5am #MCC

Mancini asks Halliday if the children's and MacDonald's info could have better been conveyed. Halliday doesn't answer the question directly. He says he believed the suspects car was "stuck" in Portapique #MCC

Mancini: after Cst. Brown and Melanson learned from Lisa Banfield about the car, was that conveyed to you? Halliday: yes, I spoke directly with Brown #MCC

Halliday is being asked about messaging to the public. @dartjenhen has written an article about this, and I'll get it published over lunch #MCC

Halliday spoke with RCMP communications director Lia Scanlan at 7:15am #MCC

Halliday said that at 7:15am, they still thought the fully marked car was one of the 2 burned out cars, but it wasn't until 8am that they re-checked those cars and realized there were no light bar, etc, on the burned out cars #MCC

Even then, tho, says Halliday, the car still could've been somewhere else in Portapique #MCC

Why not tell the public anyway? asks Mancini. Halliday: "I don't know that there was any plan not to release it." [he stumbles a bit] "It's important to understand that you know all the steps before you get ahead of yourself" #MCC

Halliday: it was important to find out if the burned out cars were the car. Otherwise, released prematurely, it could present "difficulties to the members." .. "it could put a strain on our own members as to how people may react to that" #MCC

Mancini: do you think the concern about panicking the public took priority over informing the public? Halliday: [long pause] "I think that response was balanced given the circumstances" #MCC

Mancini asks about how a tweet is approved. Halliday says that in *this* case "my thought is there was a fair bit of work being done behind the scenes... I trust the judgement of our communications people..." but they sought our approval (from Macullum) #MCC

Halliday: there was one tweet that came to me for approval at 9:45 by email, but I didn't see that email until long after 9:45. Jen Clarke called him about it. #MCC

Mancini asks Halliday about this #MCC

I wrote about this here: halifaxexaminer.ca/featured/the-r… #MCC

Brian says this email communication is "incongruent" with his understanding of the decision to notify the public — that decision to notify the public was already made, he says #MCC

Halliday: "I never talked to anyone who said that information wasn't going to be released" #MCC

Mancini plays audio of this #MCC

Halliday: I misspoke, I meant Highway 2, not Highway 4 #MCC

Mancini: had there been discussion about road closures? Halliday: yes, we talked about blocking roads or creating check points. The decision was made not to set up road blocks because they might have created "target rich environments" for the killer #MCC

Halliday: after Heidi Stevenson was shot, we had a smaller area, and I thought maybe we could contain him #MCC

Mancini asks Halliday about the "Officer" part of this. Halliday says given the magnitude of the situation he wanted someone in a senior position there #MCC

The direct questioning of Halliday is over. Something akin to a cross-examination (it's not really that), will start after lunch, at 1:45. I'll have an article published before then, hopefully #MCC

RCMP Chief Supt. Chris Leather is being investigated concerning decision to not alert the public about the mass murderer’s fake police car halifaxexaminer.ca/featured/rcmp-… by @dartjenhen

Lawyer Sandra McCulloch is now asking "follow up" questions #MCC

McCulloch: Rehill told you about the "marked up" police car early on... did he say how he knew? Halliday: I assume from 911 calls #MCC

McCulloch asks Halliday about fires that came "at a later time." She knows that the Thomas/Zahl home was seen not on fire, and then later ablaze, but were there others? Halliday: not that I know of #MCC

McCulloch: in your statement, you said the IARD team told you at around 3:30 about 5 victims. Do you know who they were? Halliday says it's difficult to separate what he knows now from what he knew then. #MCC

The number 5 keeps coming up, but it's hard to say how people fixed on 5. We know 4 early victims — Greg and Jamie Blair, Lisa McCully, and Corrie Ellison. But the other victims were killed in pairs and threes, so ... [shrug] #MCC

(I'm talking about the victims Saturday night) #MCC

McCulloch represents a lot of people, and they seem to have a diverse range of concerns, so her questions are somewhat scattershot. Whatever the families' concerns, they're all legitimate, but some resonate more with me than others #MCC

Halliday chokes up while discussing the bravery of Beselt, Patton, and Merchant. This is in context of them not being specifically trained for rural situations like this — IARD had traditionally been about school shootings, mall shootings, and other indoor situations #MCC

Lawyer Josh Bryson now questions Halliday. By 8am, you had tasked staff sergeants to get info to the public? Halliday: yes. Bryson: so does it surprise you that didn't go out until 10? Halliday: it does, but I wasn't aware of that then. #MCC

Bryson points Halliday to line 4496 here, the first time it was known GW was on the move. Halliday says he was aware of this #MCC

Halliday says he was also aware of Peterson's sighting of the car. Bryson asks Halliday if he knew about the push car. Halliday: I don't recall that I particularly took note of the push bar #MCC

Here's the photo of the car: #MCC

Bryson shows Halliday this email exchange, it which Halliday approved the tweet #MCC

Bryson asks Halliday if he expressed "outrage" or "dismay" that the tweet was sent out shortly 10. Halliday says he was focused on other issues, doesn't remember what he thought about it #MCC

Halliday approved the tweet at 9:49. It wasn't sent until 10:17. Between those two times, Kristen Beaton and Heather O'Brien were killed #MCC

Halliday agrees that that was an "unacceptable delay," but he doesn't know why there was a delay #MCC

Here's the tweet and the original photo. Note the tweet omits mention of the push bar #MCC

Bryson shows Halliday this map from the containment document . #MCC

Lawyer Tara Miller now asking Halliday questions #MCC

Miller asks about crisis negotiating training at the Canadian Police College. Halliday got the training in 2004 (I said 2010 upthread), and got periodic upgrading #MCC

Halliday wasn't the negotiator on April 18, Don McCray (sp?) was. #MCC

I wrote about the junk science of crisis negotiating here: halifaxexaminer.ca/featured/relyi…

"I want to know more about the training that crisis negotiators get. It looks a lot like other junk science regularly accepted by cops. I mean, how much can be learned in a two-day training seminar that involves several different courses?" #MCC

"Can a cop with no experience in psychology or psychiatry ... assess the psychological state of a mass murderer he had never met or talked to, on the fly MORE #MCC

... in the middle of killing spree, based solely on a couple of days of lectures he had taken in a hotel conference room years before? Seems doubtful." #MCC

Halliday says that Sunday morning there was some thought that GW was heading in the Pictou County direction. He doesn't remember where that suggestion came from #MCC

In the hours and days after the mass murders, me and the Examiner team chased down probably a couple of dozen supposed sightings of the killer overnight on April 18/19... none of those sightings panned out #MCC

Miller is pointedly asking Halliday why he didn't send more cops to intercept GW in the Truro area. He said he was focused on the Fishers' house, where he thought GW would be intercepted #MCC

We're winding up. I'm going to slip out just a bit early to take care of some personal business. Back tomorrow. #MCC