4 killed in Canada, shooting, including 2 police officers

◗ Canadian public broadcaster CBC said that the shooting happened in a residential area of New Brunswick, and that heavily armed police, paramedics and firefighters were on the scene

Two police officers were among four people killed Friday in a shooting in eastern Canada and a suspect has been arrested, authorities said.

Authorities in the city of Fredericton urged people in the Brookside neighbourhood, where residents reported waking to the sounds of dozens of shots, to remain in their homes, describing it as an “active incident” on Twitter.

Around an hour after giving first word of the killings, a second message from police said: “At this time, we can confirm that we have one suspect in custody.”

“Police continue to have the Brookside area contained for the foreseeable future as the investigation is ongoing,” police added.

Then came word from police that “of the four people killed in this morning’s shootings on Brookside Drive, two were Fredericton police officers.”

The circumstances of the shooting in the capital of New Brunswick province, home to about 60,000 people, were not immediately clear.

Canadian public broadcaster CBC said that the shooting happened in a residential area of the city north of downtown, and that heavily armed police, paramedics and firefighters were on the scene.

Witnesses described to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation seeing the barrel of a rifle or shotgun poking out from the window of a low- rise apartment and shots being fired into its courtyard.

The CBC quoted Robert DiDiodato, who lives in the area, as saying he heard a series of “firecracker” sounds around 7 am.

“With the tempo, it might’ve been a gunshot,” he said. “It was sort of like a pop, pop, pop, pop.”

He said that about five minutes later he could hear similar sounds near his home.