Gabriel Wortman
An attorney says that nine families of the Nova Scotia mass shooting are trying to certify a class action lawsuit against the estate of Gabriel Wortman, according to The Toronto Sun.
“The families that I have information from aren’t doing this strictly for money but rather to get answers and to see a form of justice against the gunman, even if it’s through his estate,” Robert Pineo said in a Friday report.
22 people were killed in a series of shootings April 18 and 19, police have said. Wortman, the killer and 23rd person to die, was slain in a shootout with officers at Big Stop restaurant, authorities said.
Pineo suggested the possibility that more people will join this legal action. Other law firms might initiate other attempts to certify class action complaints. If so, this could be consolidated together.
The lead plaintiff in this one would be Nicholas Beaton. His wife Kristen Beaton, who was pregnant, was killed while on the way to work on April 19.
Categories of other plaintiffs in the hypothetical lawsuit are immediate relatives of the victims, people injured by the gunman, and those whose property was damaged. Categories two and three omit a women described as Wortman’s common law spouse. Pineo said it’s because she might be part of the estate because of her link to Wortman.
Even police acknowledged that the sequence of events that April weekend was a lot to untangle. Cops said that things started with Wortman attacking and tying up his girlfriend. She escaped, however. The gunman went to a series of homes and locations where he shot people, according to authorities. Some of the victims were described as people that he knew.
Wortman had collected police memorabilia. That included cars he purchased from auction. During the first phase of the shootings, he’d driven around a vehicle he’d gotten in the fall of 2019, said the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He was initially wearing “parts of an authentic RCMP uniform, including a shirt and pants with a yellow stripe,” but eventually changed his clothes and vehicles, officers said.
[Image via Royal Canadian Mounted Police]