Portapique, N.S., where a gunman had killed 13 people the night before.At the time, the killer was still at large and his rampage wasn’t over.
He would kill a total of 22 people before being shot by police later that day. Inquiry into Nova Scotia mass shooting resumes Monday At 10:17 a.m., as Westlake was chatting with an RCMP officer parked in front of the building, he watched in disbelief as a car screeched to a halt about 80 metres away and two men emerged with rifles.
As both took aim at him, he made a dash for the firehall.“I remember a shot that sounded like a sonic boom and then another one that was really loud, and I’m moving at this time,” Westlake told a public inquiry investigating the worst mass shooting in modern Canadian history.The two shooters were RCMP officers who mistakenly assumed Westlake was the killer, mainly because he was wearing a yellow-and-orange reflective vest that matched the police description of what the suspect was wearing.Westlake’s dramatic account of what happened that day was given to an inquiry investigator on June 15, 2021.
The release Monday of a document that includes excerpts from that interview marks the first time the public has heard Westlake’s version of events.“Do not ask me what deity had their hand on my shoulder that day and made sure it wasn’t my time,” Westlake said in the interview.