Thread by @Tim_Bousquet

I'm at the proceedings of the Mass Casualty Commission. This entire week is devoted to familial violence, including violence against children, and the pre-murders violence of the perpetrator. It WILL BE extremely graphic. If you want to avoid this, you can mute the hashtag #MCC

Commissioner Leanne Fitch again explains that Lisa Banfield has already given five long interviews with #MCC investigators, and has provided other new evidence. Banfield will testify Friday. I wrote about her here: halifaxexaminer.ca/featured/lisa-…

We first have a witness panel of Tristan Bridges and Tara Leigh Tober, who are in California. They will discuss their report, "Mass Shootings and Masculinity," which was commissioned by the #MCC

Tristan Bridges: because mass shootings are so different from each other, it's difficult to come up with a common definition for mass shootings. And therefore, databases have widely varying collection of cases #MCC

Tober explains, for instance, the FBI makes a distinction between "spree" murders and "serial" murders. It's hard to say which the April 2020 murders were, as there were two distinct stages, separated by 6-8 hours. #MCC

Tober: and the FBI doesn't characterize an in-family killing of more than 4 people as an "mass shooting," nor is gang violence. Even Columbine is sometimes not called a mass shooting, because there were 2 shooters. #MCC

#MCC lawyer: why does a definition matter? Tober: We need to be able to count them, before we can study them.

#MCC lawyer Emily Hill: can you tell me how many mass shootings happened last year, the last 10 years? Bridges: every scholar will have a different answer

#MCC lawyer Emily Hill: are mass shootings increasing in frequency? Tober: that's hard to say. When asked, scholars start arguing with each other about definitions.

Tober: our definition is a mass shooting is when 4 or more people are shot, and not necessarily killed. For example, there was a shooting in a shopping centre, where 16 people were shot, but no one was killed. Thanks a good thing! But we consider that a mass shooting #MCC

Bridges: what's going on in the US is an exaggeration of what's going on in the rest of the world. If I had to guess, the frequency of mass shootings in Canada is increasing, but not by as much of an increase as is seen in the US. #MCC

#MCC lawyer Emily Hill: is there a correlation between gun ownership and mass shootings? Bridges: in the US, there are so many guns that the correlation is less than you would expect.

#MCC staff say they've made this report available on the website, but I'll be damned if I can find it.

Bridges: Canada has the 6th most rate of private gun ownership, but the rate of mass shootings is about the same as countries with much less rates of gun ownership. You have to get into the culture of guns #MCC

Bridges: the NRA's arguments are truly dumb #MCC

Bridges: "It's basically half the population committing all the mass shootings." We have about 4,000 mass shootings in our database, and 11 of them involve women #MCC

Bridges is explaining university research that involves "tricking" men by telling men they fall outside the normal "masculinity" range, and see how they react, and I'm wondering how this was approved by a human subjects research ethics board #MCC

But in any event, when men are told they fall outside the normal masculinity range, they tend to identify with "other ways" of identifying with masculinity, including owning guns, downplaying sexual violence, etc. #MCC

Bridges: throughout COVID, we've had detailed data on how many people are dying from the disease. But with mass shootings, you get 20 scholars in a room, and they can't agree on how many mass shootings there are #MCC

We're on a 20-minute break. #MCC

We're back, just a couple of follow-up questions. Hill asks specifically about "assault rifles" in the context of gun culture or masculinity. Tober: After Sandy Hook, the families successfully sued the manufacturer regarding "consider your man card reissued" advertising #MCC

Megan Stevens, @MegStephensLaw, who represents a coalition of participants, asks why domestic violence is often excluded from definitions of mass shooting. Bridges: it's unfortunate, I'll blame the media. #MCC

Stephens, not Stevens. I regret my many errors #MCC

Tober: we treat domestic violence and gang violence as something that happens "over there," but there's no clear distinction #MCC

Here's Bridges' and Tober's report: masscasualtycommission.ca/files/commissi… #MCC

I don't know for sure, but typically academics are NOT paid for writing such reports, at least not directly. They of course are paid by the public via their universities and research projects. There's no financial or conflict of interest disclosure on the report. #MCC

Tober: when the pandemic started we thought we could "catch our breath" as there would be a decline in mass shootings, but we couldn't, possibly because the "random" shootings were replaced with domestic shootings #MCC

Stephens: how come not a lot of black men and boys are mass shooters? Tober: we're really talking about *perceived* loss of privilege. Bridges: but we include gang violence, and when we do that, the disparity decreases. It's a different kind of crime. #MCC

That panel is over, and we're moving on to the "Violence in the Perpetrator’s Family of Origin" document. When it's tabled, I'll publish an article about it and a bunch of other stuff #MCC

#MCC lawyer Laura Snowden is presenting the doc

Making a murderer: the multi-generational violence of the mass murderer’s family halifaxexaminer.ca/featured/makin… by me. This is extremely graphic

To be clear, this includes descriptions of child abuse and more #MCC

As I wrote this morning, no one wants to excuse or explain away the horrific actions of the mass murderer, but understanding why he became who he was will help us address lots of other injured people who are harming the world in less spectacular ways. #MCC

Here's the Wortman family tree

George Wortman, GW’s great-grandfather, was “a tyrant who brutalized his family,” according to George’s grandson (and GW’s uncle) Neil Wortman. George Wortman so traumatized his children that after he died, they refused to mention his name #MCC

One of George's children was Stanley Wortman, who had five sons: Neil, Paul (the father of GW), Glynn, Alan, and Chris. #MCC

Stanley was physically violent with the 3 oldest boys. #MCC

When Glynn was 14, he attacked his father (Stanley) with a knife, trying to kill him. #MCC

This story takes a weird twist... Paul, GW's father, had a second child, who they gave up for adoption at birth. That child became Jeff Samuelson, now a master carpenter in North Brookfield, Massachusetts. #MCC

40 years later, Paul and his wife Evelyn connected with Jeff, who had no previous knowledge of them. As he got to meet his birth family, he found them odd, and his birth uncle (Paul's brother) Neil wrote him this letter #MCC

All of Paul's 4 brothers said Paul often beat Evelyn, sometimes in front of the child, GW #MCC

Paul also was violent against his son, GW — "extremely abused" #MCC

Glynn Wortman related an incident when GW was “just a little boy”: Paul “held a gun to [GW’s] head, and then to Evelyn’s. #MCC

Jeff Samuelson said that Paul Wortman told him about an incident involving GW, when GW was about three years old. “The old man volunteered that … the old man decided that the kid didn’t need a blanket any more, so he burnt the friggen thing in front of him.” #MCC

Chris related that when GW was about seven years old, Paul handed GW a loaded 22 and said “shoot!” #MCC

GW never called his parents “mom” or “dad,” but rather by their names, Paul and Evelyn. #MCC

Neil recounted some of Paul’s violence that GW saw as a child... #MCC

GW “was walking down Wheeler Boulevard one time with his mother and a fellow drove by really really fast and just narrowly clipped them. Paul was there with his car and saw it. He chased the car, pulled him over, and dragged him out of his car and beat him badly.” #MCC

Neil related a similar incident, but this time on Mountain Road. “Somebody beat their horn at him and he took offence, got out of his car, walked back, pulled the man out of his car, and beat him badly.” #MCC

GW, then a pre-teen, was given a dog, and made some child-like mistake — possibly not cleaning up after it or missing a meal. So Paul forced GW to shoot the dog dead. #MCC

They said Paul would do stuff like sneaking Evelyn into the drive-in movie theatre in the trunk of the car, or sewing pockets to the inside of a coat so he could shoplift meat at the grocery store, and getting back at perceived wrongs done to him with vandalism. #MCC

Snowden is getting into details already covered, about GW beating Paul in Cuba, and threatening to kill him. This better fits with stuff I'll put in an article tomorrow #MCC

At the end of the article I published, I explore the possibility that GW acquired RCMP uniforms from *his father*, Paul. So far, much attention has been focused on his 2 uncles who were RCMP officers, Alan and Chris. #MCC

Snowden discusses the complaint to police when GW threatened to kill Paul. Halifax police came to the Portland Street residence to investigate, and Lisa Banfield said there were no weapons on the premises MORE #MCC

Other evidence suggests there were in fact weapons there. Snowden says Banfield will testify directly about this on Friday #MCC

As Halifax police were investigating the threat, Truro police issued a warning that GW wanted to kill a police officer. As a result, the file was kept open. Very long story too short: Paul didn't cooperate, and the file was closed #MCC

At issue here (in part) is the involvement of Cst. Greg Wiley, who told #MCC investigators he doesn't remember talking with Halifax PD at all.

I received 108 new documents this morning. One of them has some "holy shit" moments in it. Reporting on it tomorrow. #MCC

We're breaking until 2pm. I have an awful lot of material to cover, not sure if I'll be back for the next witness, who is Dr. Deborah Doherty who studies family violence and gender-based violence in the particular context of rural communities in Atlantic Canada #MCC