Ottawa police admit they made mistakes last week when communicating key information about the city’s worst mass killing in recent history.
Six people, including a mother, her four young children and a family acquaintance, were found dead inside a townhouse in the south Ottawa suburb of Barrhaven on March 6. The woman’s husband and father of the children remains in hospital.
A 19-year-old man who was living with the family is in custody facing six counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder.
According to police, they began receiving calls at 10:52 p.m. Wednesday and responded minutes later. In court, prosecutors said the accused was in custody around 11 p.m.
The day after the tragedy, the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) called the killings a “mass shooting” when no guns were involved, repeatedly misspelled the victims’ names and misidentified the accused.
Chief referred to ‘mass shooting’
On Thursday morning during a live, nationally broadcast interview on CBC, OPS Chief Eric Stubbs mistakenly called the killings a “mass shooting.”
During a news conference that afternoon, Stubbs misidentified the man in custody as “Frank D’Souza.” Later that day Febrio De-Zoysa, a 19-year-old Sri Lankan national who had come to Canada as a student, was officially charged.
After the news conference on Thursday, OPS issued five separate emails to correct the victims’ names they’d provided earlier that day.
Their first attempt contained errors in three of the six names. The second email contained different errors in the same three names.
A third email corrected two names and the age of a victim. After CBC flagged more errors, OPS replied with yet another correction. Then, at 3 p.m., they issued a final version.
‘Quickly evolving’ investigation
In a statement to CBC, OPS admitted the mistakes and said homicides are “very complex files to investigate and quickly evolving.”
In the case of the Barrhaven killings, police said there were “multiple credible sources consulted in the collating of names, and some information we received was wrong,” OPS said.
“We also made mistakes when we communicated key information about the tragic deaths. That is an inherent risk of the fast paced and timely communications we strive to deliver to Ottawa residents.”
The statement said responding officers and investigators diligently collect information in a process involving contacting “multiple sources, including involved persons (victims/suspects), witnesses, family members and of course official government/databases.”
“Erroneous information is sometimes communicated to police and we can also make mistakes when communicating with the community and media,” OPS said. “When that happens, we correct it as soon as possible.” (CBCNews)
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