Why was the public alert over September’s Inuvik shooting delayed?

When a shooting took place last month at Inuvik’s airport, a “dangerous person alert” was issued for the town and the nearby communities of Fort McPherson and Tsiigehtchic, urging residents to shelter in place.

The September 20 incident shut down the airport for several hours as RCMP responded to reports of gunfire near the terminal.

A manhunt gradually spread in focus to cover the Dempster Highway and police ultimately arrested one person, who has since been charged with attempted murder and assault.

Now, local politicians are discussing whether the alert was delivered too late.

At a recent council meeting, Inuvik town councillor Kendall McDonald described the time from the shooting to the alert reaching residents’ phones as “very long.”

Inuvik detachment commander Sgt Chris Whynot said police have the option to request an alert if they determine a situation involves a threat to public safety.

Whynot said the alert in this situation “wasn’t instantaneous,” noting it had to be translated and vetted at several levels.

“We make a request to the territorial government once that threshold has been met, and then the government goes through their processes in order to activate it, broadcast it,” he said.

The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs told Cabin Radio that RCMP had called the Territorial Emergency Management Organization (EMO) on September 20 to request help issuing the alert because they did not have full access to the National Public Alerting System at the time.

Alice Twa, a spokesperson for Maca, said RCMP provided a bilingual version of the alert that initially exceeded the system’s character limit. EMO staff worked with RCMP to shorten and confirm a revised version before issuing it.

From the time of the first call from RCMP to the alert being issued, she said, 30 minutes elapsed.

Following the incident, Twa said, RCMP and EMO officials met twice – on September 23 and again on October 3 – to identify and resolve the issue that had obstructed access to the system.

Twa said RCMP have since confirmed they now have full access to the alerting system.

“We continue to collaborate closely with the RCMP to ensure effective use of the public alerting system and to refine communication processes for emergency situations,” she said.