Mass shooting in Canada was not random, police chief says
A gunman who drove a mockup police car killed at least 16 people including a police official in a rampage across Nova Scotia, Canadian federal police said on Sunday, the worst case of its kind in the country’s history.
The shooter, identified as Gabriel Wortman, 51, was shot dead by officers after a 12-hour manhunt across the province ended on Sunday morning.
Among the victims was a veteran female constable with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which also handles municipal and provincial law enforcement in the province in the east of Canada.
Police said the suspect had been on the run since Saturday night, when officers were alerted to shots fired in the town of Portapique, about 100km from Halifax, the Nova Scotia capital.
Gun violence in Canada is far less frequent than in the neighbouring US, and weapons more strictly controlled, but the killings were the country’s worst ever, exceeding the toll in 1989 when a gunman murdered 14 female students at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique.
“This is one of the most senseless acts of violence in our province’s history,” said Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil.
“The search for the suspect ended this morning when the suspect was located. And I can confirm that he is deceased,” Royal Canadian Mounted Police chief superintendent Chris Leather told a news conference.
Leather said that at one point, the suspect appeared to be wearing part of a police uniform and was driving a vehicle made to look like a Royal Canadian Mounted Police cruiser.
The gunman exchanged fire with police at one point.
“Our officers were involved in terminating the threat,” he said, adding that the independent Serious Incident Response Team (SiRT) Police said they had no indication of a motive and that the killer acted alone.
“We believe it to be one person who’s responsible for all the killings and that he alone moved across the northern part of the province and committed, it would appear, several homicides,” said Leather.
Several of the victims did not appear to be related to the shooter, he said, but added that “the fact that this individual had a uniform and a police car at his disposal certainly speaks to it not being a random act”.
Leather said police would be investigating if there is any connection to the coronavirus, which has led to nonessential businesses being closed under governmental measures to combat the pandemic.