Dan Kinsella speaks at inquiry into mass shootings in Nova Scotia.

The chief of the Halifax Regional Police says he was aware emergency alerts were a tool to use and could be tailored to any event at the time of the mass shootings in Nova Scotia.

Dan Kinsella is testifying at the inquiry looking into the April 2020 murders. He was asked if he would have sent an alert to the public if Gabriel Wortman made it Halifax.

Kinsella feels an alert to cell phones, radio and TV should have been contemplated much earlier.

Back in July, RCMP chief superintendent Chris Leather told the inquiry they were unaware the technology existed.

Nova Scotia had never used the public alert system for a matter involving an ongoing police response at that stage. They were used for severe weather events and missing children.

Since the shootings, policy dealing with public alerting have since been implemented at all levels.

Kinsella feels one central body should manage emergency alerts going forward – such as the provincial Emergency Management Office.

Twenty-two people were killed in a 13-hour rampage over two days. Wortman was killed by RCMP at a gas station in Enfield, N.S.

The RCMP have been heavily criticized for using Twitter as the main platform to share information while the killer was on the loose and moving around rural parts of the province in a replica police cruiser.