And more Mass Casualty Commission news.
Beyond Banfield’s testimony, I’m especially interested in the killer’s financial misdealings and the RCMP “psychological autopsy” of the killer.
As to the former, next week complaints to the Nova Scotia Denturist Board will be entered into evidence; I don’t know what those complaints are related to, but we know the killer treated a lot of people on social assistance, and that he used that position to find people to have sex with. Despite his inheritance from Tom Evans, and (possibly) over-billing and the like, it still strikes me that the killer had more wealth than can be accounted for.
And the “psychological autopsy” sounds like a bunch of junk science to me. So far as I know, when he was alive the killer was never analyzed by a trained psychiatrist or psychologist. Maybe the RCMP has university-trained forensic psychiatrists or psychologists on staff, but much policing “science” consists of beat cops taking week-long courses that relate unproven and discredited science. And can even a university-trained professional reverse-engineer a corpse to determine a person’s mental state when alive? I’m skeptical.
This matters because there’s an underlying notion that “we” or police can somehow predict or anticipate mass murderers before they strike. I don’t know; maybe? Surely there are “red flags” that should be attended to whether or not anyone can say decisively that they will lead to a mass murder. If some kid is torturing cats, he needs help. If people are collecting illegal weapons, intervention is needed. There should be no tolerance for or looking the other way from domestic violence, even if it never spills out from the home.
But some of this discussion is borderline pre-crime language, which is worrying, as it can lead to acceptance of overreaching surveillance and profiling, and criminalizing of already marginalized groups. We may believe that instituting some sort of surveillance and reporting system might prevent the next Portapique, but invariably it will more likely be used to usher an entire generation of black and brown kids into the criminal justice system.
There’s a huge difference between the rich white guy down the road who beats his wife and has oodles of illegal weaponry and the poor black teenager who spoke back to his teacher and got in a schoolyard dustup, but as our society goes, the first will likely be ignored while the second will bring on an overbearing and never-ending law enforcement response.
