Mounties who shot at fellow officers during N.S. mass shooting won’t face charges

HALIFAX — A police watchdog agency says no charges are warranted against two Mounties who fired five shots at other RCMP officers parked at a firehall during last year’s Nova Scotia mass shooting.

The Serious Incident Response team concludes the officers who fired their guns had been told the killer was driving a replica police vehicle and was wearing an orange vest, giving them grounds to believe the officer standing beside a patrol car was the murderer.

It says when they approached the Onslow firehall on April 19, police saw a marked vehicle and an officer wearing an orange and yellow vest standing next to it.

According to the report, they attempted to radio for further information but the bandwidths were so full they couldn’t get through.

The investigation says the two officers then demanded that the officer standing near the firehall show his hands, and when he instead started to move away, they opened fire — with one officer firing four shots and the other a single shot.

Neither the officer who was standing near the firehall nor another officer, who was still in the patrol car next to the hall, were hit or injured in the incident.

The agency’s report says the two officers were on the trail of a killer who they knew had randomly killed people in the past 12 hours, and “they discharged their weapons in order to prevent further deaths or serious injuries.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 2, 2021.

The Canadian Press