Nova Scotia political playbook: when in doubt, blame the reporter

When Alonzo Wright was appointed Director of Nova Scotia’s Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT) in December 2022, he gave his first interview to Matthew Byard, the Examiner’s Local Initiatives Reporter. Wright’s appointment as SIRT’s first director of African descent came at a fraught moment in the decade-long existence of the civilian police oversight body, whose […]

Internal RCMP report raises questions about officers’ actions — but SIRT too

Last week’s seemingly out-of-sync release of an internal RCMP report into the shooting at the Onslow Firehall during April 2020’s mass shooting raises troubling questions. Some are more easily and satisfactorily answered than others. Let’s start with what happened on April 19, 2020, shortly after 10:20 a.m. outside the firehall located about 35 kilometres from […]

Time for a serious rethink of the Serious Incident Response Team?

A mentally disturbed man holding a pellet gun mistaken for a handgun was shot and killed by a police officer after the man responded to another officer firing a rubber bullet his way, so he raised his pellet gun in response… There must be a better way. On July 9, 2020, the RCMP responded to […]