Report sharply criticizes police response to Canadian mass shooting in 2020

March 30 (UPI) -- A report into a mass shooting that killed 22 people in Nova Scotia three years ago found that police missed multiple red flags and failed to respond quickly enough.

The Mass Casualty Commission said Thursday that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police failed to warn community members of the danger they were in, which deprived them of potentially lifesaving information. The police also failed to realize the role that domestic violence played in the rampage.

"More than two years after the event, RCMP leadership had done very little to systematically evaluate its critical incident response to the deadliest mass shooting in Canada's history," the commissioners said in the report, according to CBC Canada.

"In our process, it was apparent that the organizational structure of the RCMP both contributes to these failings and makes it challenging to hold the organization accountable for its work."

A gunman posing as a police officer killed 22 people in Nova Scotia over a two-day period in April 2020. The report said that police discounted eyewitnesses who said the gunman was posing as a police officer.

The gunman, Gabriel Wortman, killed 13 people April 18, and then went undetected overnight. The next day, he killed nine more people. The report said that he had abused his wife for years before he went on the rampage.

"Many red flags about [the gunman's] violent and illegal behavior were known by a broad range of people, and have been brought to the attention of police and others over a number of years." said Michael MacDonald, chair of the Mass Casualty Commission, according to the BBC.

The report called for more attention and resources for dealing with the problem of domestic violence.

"Gender-based, intimate partner, and family violence is an epidemic. Like the COVID-19 pandemic, it is a public health emergency that warrants a meaningful, whole of society response," the report said.