Back in July, a consortium of media organizations who went to court back to seek “information about guns used in the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting and the firearms seized from the home of the attacker.”
On August 13, a series of 11 heavily redacted documents were released, included nearly all references to the firearms used. The word “rifle” shows up in some of the documents in reference to a gun found at the school.
Previously, the RCMP had disclosed that they had recovered two weapons: a long gun and a modified handgun, the latter of which is not mentioned in the un-redacted portion of what was released.
We did learn that the guns found at Van Rootselaar’s home was a shotgun (there were also reports of shell casings on the floor) and a pellet gun.
Previously, it was released in a briefing by RCMP commanding officer Dwayne McDonald that two firearms were believed to have been used — one at the school and one at the house.
While many have argued that guns previously seized from the home should never have been returned to the family, it was also announced back in February that these particular firearms had never been seized by police.
The main intent of the consortium was to get more information about the firearms—what type, what the modifications were and other details about the weapons—but nothing was learned other than the type of guns.
The documents include three “Information to Obtain” (ITO) documents, which are requests that the RCMP file, in order to get the court to issue a search warrant or warrants.
These ITOs contain information that is currently known, and the rationale for seeking more information. While there is presumably interesting information in these requests, they are heavily redacted, sometimes just black squares for pages in a row.
The other eight documents are the warrants issued.
Each warrant is limited in its scope. The first ITO, from February 11, is a request to perform a physical search of where Van Rootselaar lived, as well as the vehicle used to get to the school. There are two warrants issued based on this request: one for the search of the property, and one for the search of the vehicle.
The second ITO, dated February 20, is a request for electronic information found on a series of cell phones, computers, SD cards and a handy cam. There are five distinct warrants that arise out of this ITO, each covering a separate device type: one for a cell phone, one for the SD cards and Sony Handycam, etc.
Finally, the third ITO, dated March 6, is a request for a production order, to compel OpenAI to turn over all relevant information. A production order is a request to a third party, not under investigation but that is assumed to hold information relevant to the case.
(There is one last document, which appears to be a correction to pages 50-59 the third ITO, though again, almost all of the information here is redacted.)
In Canada, court proceedings and court records are public, which is part of the freedom of expression clause in section 2(b) of the charter. “Justice administered in secret cannot be scrutinized,” says lawyer Kyla Lee in a post on Medium, “and a system that cannot be scrutinized cannot hold public confidence.”
People are allowed to ask for information to be unsealed, but it isn’t a binary. If the court decides that the information can be released, it can do a partial release. The typical method of doing this is by redacting, which is showing here.
“Those interests can justify a great deal of redaction,” says Lee. “They cannot justify sealing an entire file indefinitely once the investigative rationale has run out, which is the argument the media consortium attempted to make.”
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
