After exploring how the provincial health care system, and civilian and military authorities let down Afghanistan veteran Cpl. Lionel Desmond, and led to the tragic murder-suicide, the Desmond Fatality Inquiry looked into how he was able to obtain the murder weapon.
On February 18, a New Brunswick RCMP officer who confiscated Cpl. Desmond’s rifle in 2015 testified he did so because he had concerns the former rifleman was suicidal.
Cst. Steven Richard told the inquiry he and three other Mounties were dispatched to a home in Oromocto, N.B. on November 27, 2015, where Cpl. Desmond had been living.
Cst. Richard removed a Savage .223 rifle from a locked case in Cpl. Desmond’s garage after his wife Shanna called from Nova Scotia indicating her husband just said his goodbyes and he was heading to his garage where he kept his firearm. RCMP in Nova Scotia later seized two additional rifles Cpl. Desmond kept in the family home in Guysborough County.
“He was saying it was time to go,” the constable testified. “One of Mr. Desmond’s texts said he would see his young daughter in heaven.”
Cst. Richard indicated he was aware at the time of the call of Cpl. Desmond’s diagnosis of PTSD and depression, as Shanna confirmed her husband was being medically discharged from the military and that the couple was experiencing marital issues.
Under New Brunswick’s Mental Health Act, Cst. Richard arrested Cpl. Desmond after it became clear he was a threat to himself – but the soldier, who was just beginning his release from the military due to ongoing symptoms of PTSD, was assessed by a doctor for only 20-minutes at a Fredericton hospital and “was home soon after, by the wee hours of November 28, 2015.”
Later that morning, Cpl. Desmond would drive himself back to the home he occasionally shared with his wife in Upper Big Tracadie, called the local RCMP detachment and “demanded to know where his guns were.”
Cst. Richard said he knew Cpl. Desmond had a firearms licence, but it didn’t occur to him to take it from the former rifleman because he “never made any overt threat to use a weapon of any sort.” He also testified he understood his licence would soon be under review by New Brunswick’s chief firearms officer.
The inquiry heard Cpl. Desmond’s possession and acquisition licence wasn’t placed under review until December 29, 2015, when theoretically, he could have purchased a firearm during the month after his suicide scare.
Cst. Richard said he tried to call the provincial firearms office but was unable to reach anyone until February 2016.
When asked by inquiry counsel what additional steps he could have taken, the RCMP officer suggested he might have been able to check on the licence status and whether it had been reviewed – by checking a firearms licence database. Cst. Richard told the inquiry he was unsure how accurate the information in the database would be.
Despite numerous calls to the police and his ongoing struggle with PTSD and major depression, after serving a seven month tour of Afghanistan in 2007, Cpl. Desmond would receive back both guns and his license would be reinstated.
Cst. Richard told the inquiry it wasn’t until mid-May 2016 when he learned Cpl. Desmond had submitted a medical assessment to New Brunswick’s chief firearms officer confirming he was not a threat to himself or others.
Cpl. Desmond received his guns back and his licence was reinstated on May 13, 2016 – the same time he would enter an in-patient treatment program in Montreal for veterans suffering from severe PTSD.
On February 19, it was learned that Cpl. Desmond’s firearms possession and acquisition licence was first flagged for review by firearms officials in New Brunswick in 2014 after it was revealed the Afghanistan war veteran didn’t disclose his PTSD diagnosis on his application.
Despite the omission and a suicide attempt a year later, the former rifleman was able to get his licence reinstated, undeterred by recurring encounters with the RCMP.
According to testimony from New Brunswick’s acting chief firearms officer on February 19, Lysa Rossignol told the inquiry Cpl. Desmond’s doctor told a firearms officer he couldn’t see any reason why Cpl. Desmond should be prevented from getting a licence renewal.
“He has no problem with Mr. Desmond possessing firearms,” Rossignol read from a December 2014 investigation report. “He’s been treating him for approximately four-and-a-half-years and has him medicated. He advises that Mr. Desmond has no psychosis and has never mentioned self-harm or any violent ideation.”
When asked by inquiry counsel Allen Murray if the firearms officer asked for supporting medical documentation, Rossignol indicated he did not.
Following Cpl. Desmond’s arrest under the Mental Health Act, his firearms were confiscated by the RCMP and his possession and acquisition licence was again placed under review by New Brunswick PFO – something that wasn’t placed under review until December 29, 2015, approximately four-weeks later.
In January 2016, a medical assessment form was sent to another doctor who concluded a similar report as the first assessment.
“Non-suicidal and stable,” Rossignol said as she read Dr. Paul Smith’s comments included in the second investigation report. “No concerns for firearms usage with appropriate licence.”
It’s unclear exactly when Cpl. Desmond began seeing Dr. Smith, the Fredericton-based doctor who switched him from his previous medication to medicinal marijuana.
Five months before he signed off on Cpl. Desmond’s firearms review, a prescription dated October 1, 2015, which was signed by Dr. Smith marks one of the earliest pieces of evidence of their clinical relationship.
Typically, Rossignol told the inquiry, the PFO will only accept a medical form from a clinician who “has known the patient for some time,” however, she couldn’t specify exactly how long that requirement needed to be.
Dr. Vinod Joshi, a psychiatrist assigned to Cpl. Desmond while he was in the military, had previously signed off on an earlier review in November 2014 when the soldier was trying to renew his licence and upgrade it to include restricted firearms.
Despite describing his patient as “medicated, having shown neither signs of psychosis or suicidal ideation,” Dr. Joshi saw no issue in renewing the licence Cpl. Desmond first received in 2008. The firearms officer assigned to the review however, did question why Cpl. Desmond wasn’t truthful on his application when it came to his mental health.
Rossignol testified she was in the process of reviewing the file when she observed Cpl. Desmond’s licence had been flagged on the Canadian Firearms Information System following an incident involving police in Nova Scotia on November 18, 2015. Rossignol said it took four months for her to determine what happened on that date because the Nova Scotia PFO had trouble receiving disclosure from the RCMP.
Documents from the RCMP detachment in Canso revealed police were dispatched to check on Cpl. Desmond’s mental health after his aunt complained he was in a manic state and suffering from paranoia, depression and PTSD. The investigating officer however, reported Cpl. Desmond as “calm and lucid.”
The inquiry also learned of two additional RCMP calls involving Cpl. Desmond in Nova Scotia – on November 25, and November 28, 2016, but neither one of those mental health calls were flagged in the database used by the PFO.
Rossignol told the inquiry it was the doctors’ reports that propelled the PFO to validate Cpl. Desmond’s licence.
The chief firearms officer who approved Cpl. Desmond’s firearms possession and acquisition licence renewal testified on February 20 she would have rejected the soldier’s application if she had been more aware of his severe mental illness.
Rossignol told the inquiry she was unaware of a December 2015 letter recommending Cpl. Desmond for admission to a residential treatment program for people suffering from PTSD.
Judge Zimmer read Rossignol a referral request sent to Ste. Anne’s Hospital in Montréal, which was completed by Cpl. Desmond’s psychiatrist and two other treating clinicians on December 15, 2015 from a Fredericton-based operational stress injury clinic.
The request read his doctors “strongly recommend” admitting the former rifleman for in-patient treatment at the residential program for veterans with PTSD, as he was suffering from a complex version of the illness, as well as battling major depression – requiring intervention to stabilize his mental health.
Zimmer told the chief firearms officer he wanted her to understand the full scope of additional medical information that could have been made available to her during her review of the veteran’s firearms possession and acquisition licence.
Rossignol’s review was triggered by Cpl. Desmond’s suicide attempt in Oromocto, N.B., on November 27, 2015, 18-days before the referral request would have been sent to Ste. Anne’s Hospital.
“If our office would have been privy to this letter, it would have changed the outcome of his licence,” she testified.
Cpl. Desmond’s licence was fully reinstated after a two-week waiting period in May 2016, around the same time he entered the in-patient PTSD treatment facility in Montréal.
Previous evidence entered into the inquiry shows Dr. Smith signed a medical assessment for the PFO, describing Cpl. Desmond as “stable and non-suicidal.”
Rossignol testified Dr. Smith’s brief assessment, which echoed a similar assessment made by another physician in 2014, gave her the assurance she needed to reinstate Cpl. Desmond’s firearms possession and acquisition licence.
During cross-examination, Tom Macdonald, the lawyer representing the Borden family questioned why Rossignol and the PFO were satisfied with Dr. Smith’s “one-sentence report.” The New Brunswick PFO adopted a new medical form, just one month after the tragic triple murder-suicide in Upper Big Tracadie.
Derek Eardley, the province’s then-chief firearms officer, told the inquiry the new forms require doctors to provide more information when asked for an assessment. Eardley confirmed the Desmond case “was definitely a big driver,” and prompted the change in February 2017.
Then on February 24, Dr. Smith testified that he didn’t realize his medical opinion would carry as much weight as it did and would be the only one the provincial firearms office would consider under its review.
He testified that he believed Cpl. Desmond’s firearms possession and acquisition licence would be rejected by the RCMP, or another agency, noting on several occasions all he had to do was put a checkmark in a box that he agreed his patient didn’t pose a risk to himself or the public by owning a firearm.
The physician told the inquiry he first met Cpl. Desmond on July 2, 2015 after being referred to him by a fellow veteran to look at cannabis as an alternative medicine to treat his severe PTSD and major depression as his military-prescribed prescription drugs were no longer working. Dr. Smith said the veteran wanted relief from suicidal thoughts, anger and insomnia.
Despite tipping the charts in hyper-vigilance, depression, flashbacks, anger and feeling disconnected – Cpl. Desmond personally rated his suicidal thoughts at six, while Dr. Smith testified he assessed his suicidal ideation at zero.
Prescribed a ceiling-dose of 10-grams of cannabis per day, Cpl. Desmond subsequently stopped taking all of his other pharmaceuticals including anti-depressants and sleep-aids.
According to Dr. Smith, in a follow-up appointment only three-months-later on October 1, 2015 Cpl. Desmond reported significant improvements with his symptoms – including his anxiety, poor sleeping, anger, agitation and chronic pain – which he said diminished to almost nothing since starting on medical marijuana.
Questions have been raised throughout the inquiry on the efficiency of his cannabis trial as the veteran later confided in another psychiatrist he felt his medical marijuana increased paranoid ideations about his wife’s fidelity.
Dr. Smith countered he saw positive results and the “instability,” like suicidal thoughts “dropped dramatically.”
Despite those results, Dr. Smith told the inquiry about a conversation he had with Cpl. Desmond regarding a phone call he received a few weeks prior from Shanna indicating her husband was “acting aggressively and appeared to be in a manic state.”
Dr. Smith explained Cpl. Desmond wasn’t in a manic state and was frustrated with his wife for causing financial hardship and the couple was headed for a separation.
During their last appointment together on February 23, 2016 Cpl. Desmond indicated he was no longer using medical marijuana as he was preparing for his admittance after being referred to an in-patient facility in Montréal to seek medical therapy for his PTSD.
Dr. Smith told the inquiry, it was only then Cpl. Desmond requested his signature on a medical assessment form from the chief firearms officer in New Brunswick to reinstate his firearms licence.
The form described how Cpl. Desmond’s firearms were confiscated in both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and his licence was placed under review because he was arrested under New Brunswick’s Mental Health Protection Act on November 27, 2015.
Inquiry counsel Shane Russell questioned why Dr. Smith was unaware of the two separate incidents in November 2015, where Nova Scotia RCMP responded to reports of Cpl. Desmond acting in an aggressive manner.
During cross-examination Macdonald, who represents the Borden family, asked Dr. Smith if he understood the form he was signing was for the reinstatement of a license that was at the time under review by New Brunswick’s PFO – Smith suggested he didn’t and thought it was a simple renewal application.
When asked as to why he still filled out the medical assessment for Cpl. Desmond’s firearms review, Dr. Smith explained the former soldier hadn’t seemed to be suicidal when they met, and appeared to have been maintaining a stable mindset ever since starting treatment on medical marijuana.
The New Brunswick PFO adopted a new medical assessment form just one month after the triple murder-suicide; something the province’s then-chief firearms officer testified was directly prompted in response to the tragedy.
The questionnaire now requires doctors to collect a more detailed history of the applicant to create a better understanding of their well-being.
Unfortunately for the Desmond family, it was too little, too late.
Cpl. Desmond was trying to get help; he was in repeated run-ins with police and his family, and he was assessed by multiple mental health professionals, but once again, the system broke down.
Once again, there was a lack of communication, and an unwillingness, or inability, to share information between the military and civilian authorities.
Knowing the complex set of problems that Cpl. Desmond was dealing with, knowing his fragile state at the time, knowing his history of run-ins with police, and knowing there was a strong possibility, he could re-offend, still he was granted a firearm licence.
The process for granting licences to own, possess and use a firearm is supposed to screen-out people who may cause harm to themselves and others. Even with a mountain of evidence screaming otherwise, Cpl. Desmond was allowed to legally purchase the weapon with which he killed himself and his family.
Not just the provincial health care system – Veterans Affairs Canada, authorities in New Brunswick, the RCMP, and the military he served valiantly – all dropped the ball, and four people are dead as a result.
This is a massive system failure exposed by the fatality inquiry that spanned national and provincial jurisdictions.