Seconds after a Mountain rushed past a gunman wanted for a murderous riot in Nova Scotia two years ago, the officer was reluctant to pursue and when he did, the suspect was gone. Public inquiry documents released Thursday describe in detail for the first time a meeting between Cpl. Rodney Peterson and the killer on April 19, 2020. The two men – a real Mountie and the other rogue in a police uniform driving a replica of an RCMP vehicle – went in opposite directions shortly before 9:48 a.m. on Freeway 4 in the Glenholme community. Peterson wirelessly told other RCMP members that the driver was wearing a reflective vest and “smiled as he passed,” prompting another police officer to say, “This is it. This must be it.” The captain had come to the shift that morning with instructions to watch out for a patrol car and put on his armor. Originally destined for Portapique, NS, where the first 13 killings took place on April 18, he was taken to the side of the road where Lillian Campbell – the 16th victim of the murder – was killed that morning in Wentworth, NS. Moments after the killer passed by him, leaving the scene, Peterson struggled to determine his next move. “Am I trying to decide, should I stop, slow down, talk to this person or continue?” Peterson would recall in an interview with the commission’s lawyers. “Well, I said, ‘If I stop and this is the bad guy, they’ll shoot me here, I’ll be killed. “If I continue, this will give me the opportunity to go back and chase him, or do something,” he told the interviewer. However, in the ensuing seconds, the policeman found the road too narrow for a quick turnaround. He said he was worried that if he was too late to make the turn, the killer would come back to shoot him or the opposite traffic could hit him. According to the commission summary, Peterson turned to chase about 1.2 kilometers after the point where he and the gunman had crossed. “At this point, I think, I’ll be shot if I do not do it right,” the officer told the commission in an interview, explaining his decision to delay the turn. Later that day, at Shubenacadie, NS, Const. Chad Morrison will be shot and seriously injured in his car by the killer, while Const. Heidi Stevenson’s vehicle was shot and fatally shot. Unknown to Peterson, meanwhile, a second, tense drama unfolded about a couple living along the highway – which would drive the police officer out of the chase. According to the commission summary, the killer, Gabriel Wortman, turned on the road between Carol and Adam Fisher less than a minute after Peterson overtook him. Wartman knew Adam Fisher, an excavator, from an excerpt given by the contractor at his home in Portapik. The killer had also been found at Fisers’ Glenholme’s home once in the past, according to the synopsis. He pulled the replica of the RCMP at the end of their long journey, behind the couple’s two vehicles where it was not easily visible from the freeway. A grainy image captured by the couple’s video surveillance system shows him standing near the car, carrying what appears to be a rifle. The killer knocked on Fishers’ door and rang the doorbell, but both had seen a social media alert identifying Wortman and were aware of the danger, according to a document filed in the investigation. Adam Fisher snatched his 12-caliber shotgun, loaded it and he and his wife – both on the 911 phone – found hiding places around 9:49 a.m. “If he comes to my house, I’ll blow his … head,” Adam Fisher told his 911 pilot. The committee did not give an exact time for how long Wortman stayed around the house, but estimated – based on travel time to the next destinations – it was about two minutes. As this was happening, the commission’s account shows that Peterson drove from Fisers’s residence, traveling south on the freeway, without realizing that Wortman was there. The officer continued at Highway 4 intersection with Trans-Canada Highway until about 9:50 a.m. when he heard from police officers that Wortman had left for Fishers’s home. Meanwhile, the narrative of the investigation suggests that the killer returned with the copy of the RCMP car, drove north on Highway 4 and turned on Plains Road, towards the small community of Debert, again escaping police and emergency teams running towards the house of the Fisers. He killed two other people on Plains Road, Kristen Beaton and Heather O’Brien, who were in their vehicles. Beaton, who was pregnant with her second child, was a continuing care assistant in the Victorian Order of Nurses on the way to work, while O’Brien, an authorized nurse practitioner at VON, was on leave. . This Canadian Press report was first published on March 31, 2022.
