Police surround home in search for stab suspect

Canadian police surrounded a residence with guns drawn Tuesday on an Indigenous reserve where a stabbing rampage took place over the weekend, as authorities warned people the remaining suspect might be in the area.

Police sent an emergency alert to phones asking people to shelter in place, saying the suspect, Myles Sanderson, may have been sighted on the James Smith Cree First Nation reserve. An Associated Press reporter heard people screaming and running and saw police surround a home. Police were barricading roads heading into the reserve.

An official familiar with the matter said it’s not confirmed if Myles Sanderson is inside, but the alert was put as a precaution and for the safety of residents. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Authorities previously said he was believed to be in a different part of the province.

The brothers are accused of killing 10 people and wounding 18 in the weekend attacks.

The fugitive’s brother and fellow suspect, Damien Sanderson, 31, was found dead Monday near the stabbing sites. Police are investigating whether Myles Sanderson, 30, killed his brother.

Leaders of the James Smith Cree Nation, where most of the stabbing attacks took place, blamed the killings on drug and alcohol abuse plaguing the community, which they said was a legacy of the colonization of Indigenous people.

The stabbing attack was among the deadliest mass killings in Canada, where such crimes are less common than in the United States. The deadliest gun rampage in Canadian history happened in 2020, when a man disguised as a police officer shot people in their homes and set fires across the province of Nova Scotia, killing 22 people. In 2019, a man used a van to kill 10 pedestrians in Toronto.

Deadly mass stabbings are rarer than mass shootings, but have happened around the world. In 2014, 29 people were slashed and stabbed to death at a train station in China’s southwestern city of Kunming. In 2016, a mass stabbing at a facility for the mentally disabled in Sagamihara, Japan, left 19 people dead. A year later, three men killed eight people in a vehicle and stabbing attack at London Bridge.