RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki is facing questions today at a public inquiry into the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting on why the police force didn’t move more swiftly to implement recommendations for reform.
Josh Bryson, a lawyer for family members of two people killed in the shootings, asked Lucki why the RCMP hadn’t implemented recommendations from past reviews calling for investigators to attend crime scenes in a “timely fashion.”
Bryson notes that police took more than 18 hours before they entered the home of Peter and Joy Bond, who were among the 22 people killed by a gunman driving a replica police vehicle on April 18-19, 2020.
Lucki said Bryson raised “many, many good points,” and she speculated that the RCMP failed to properly communicate lessons learned from past cases to rank-and-file members.
The commissioner says it’s her job to see issues at the “10,000-foot level,” adding that she can’t personally address the past policy reforms in detail, such as changes to the way officers respond to mass shootings.
She says her focus is ensuring that the RCMP’s website tracks the implementation of recommendations from previous inquiries and that the force offers the public regular progress updates.
