Tight lid on shooting probe creates anxiety and suspicion, says former journalist

The public has a right to know some details about what happened when a gunman opened fire at an apartment complex in Fredericton last week, says a former CBC reporter who is now the director of a journalism program in Ontario.

"The lack of information only encourages, in my experience, public anxiety and concerns and, frankly, a sense of suspicion that's cast on the news media," Jeffrey Dvorkin, at the University of Toronto in Scarborough, told lnformation Morning Fredericton.

Details from Fredericton police haven't reached a trickle since Friday's shooting on the north side, and some information has been confusing.  

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It's still unclear, for instance, whether alleged shooter Matthew Vincent Raymond knew any of the four victims or if the 48-year-old Fredericton resident was known to police.

At a news conference on the weekend, one of the official speakers said Raymond wasn't known to police, but Chief Leanne Fitch quickly intervened to say this information was part of the investigation.  

Initially, police wouldn't even reveal whether the person taken to hospital with serious injuries after the shooting was the suspect or another victim, saying this, too, was part of the investigation. 

No speculating

At the same time, Fitch has asked the public not to speculate about anything.

Raymond, who was shot by police, is facing four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of two officers, Const. Robb Costello, 45, and Const. Sara Burns, 43, and Donnie Robichaud, 42, and his girlfriend, Bobbie-Lee Wright, 32.

Much of what's known about the suspect, the victims and what happened that morning at 237 Brookside Drive has come from witnesses, friends and families who agreed to talk to reporters. 

The lack of information from police doesn't serve the public or police, Dvorkin suggested.

"As a news organization, the CBC and others [are] not asking to reveal details of an ongoing investigation, but simply to assure the public that things are under control," he said.

An issue of press freedom 

CBC News and other media outlets did report some details of the shooting that were publicly available from court documents, but a Court of Queen's Bench judge later order the information removed from websites and other places it was published. Justice Judy Clendening​ heard a challenge to the order on Wednesday and will announce Friday whether she'll lift it. 

The move to suppress already public information raises questions about freedom of the press, Dvorkin said.

"This is reportable information and for the courts to somehow say, 'Oops, we goofed, you can't report' — that strikes me as absolutely opposed to the idea of a free press and a free society," said Dvorkin.

"It's an indication to me of how tense and anxious the situation is in Fredericton."

Police in difficult position

Dvorkin said the public may not need the details, but people should be given a sense who is in charge, what police are doing in general, and when some form of closure in the investigation can be expected. 

He said he appreciates the difficulty Fredericton police are going through — they've lost two of their colleagues — but there still needs to be a "more open understanding of the state of play in the investigation," Dvorkin said.

"Somehow the concerns of the police and the anxieties of the public need to be met by the news media to be able to convey responsibly and accurately exactly the state of the investigation," he said.

"The media is not an agent of the police."   

'Tight-lipped'

The RCMP took over the investigation early on, but the Fredericton force and Fitch have been the public voices on the case.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Fitch acknowledged criticism regarding the lack of information and said she was aware the police have been accused of being "tight-lipped" with respect to informing the public.

"In some ways, that's true and it's important that you know why," she said in the post.

Police either don't have information or they can't share it because they want to be sure the investigation is done properly.

"We cannot make assumptions or let rumours and speculation direct us," she said. "We must deal with facts and evidence.

"This protects the integrity of the investigation and it protects the upcoming court case."

The public needs the oxygen of some information.- Jeffrey Dvorkin, University of Toronto

Dvorkin said Fitch is responding as best she can, but he questioned whether Facebook is the best platform for it.

"It just strikes me as being a duck-and-cover approach to dealing with both the media and the public."

Mistrust of media

The shootings have left the police "really anxious," and somehow people think the news media will not act in the public interest, Dvorkin said.

"That's a real problem in general. We're at a time when there's a lot of mistrust about the news media."

At the same time, he said, universities, governments and police are not trusted in the way they once were either.

Right now, he said, news organizations, along with police, have a responsibility to keep the public informed about the case.

"The public needs the oxygen of some information. To say, 'Nothing is going on right now,' is at least a kind of reassurance."

Police in other communities

Dvorkin pointed to the way police in cities like Toronto have handled horrific events. Most recently, in Toronto, a gunman opened fire in Toronto's Danforth Avenue killing two people.

He said police there handled and responded to questions from news organizations in a timely way.

"That requires a commitment to, frankly, a free press and the understanding the media is not the opponent of the police force," he said.

"At the same time, the media is not an agent of the police."