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Shooting inside Canadian Parliament
Oct 22, 201410:34 PM
Canada’s parliament building and other government offices are locked down in Ottawa after an armed attack left at least one injured guard at the country’s main war memorial.
Ottawa police confirmed that there were multiple suspects in the shooting, saying there were “possibly three” shooters. They said shots were fired at three separate locations in the city.
Police were searching for the assailants as armed officers locked down Canada’s parliament building and Prime Minister Stephen Harper was moved out of the area. Mr. Harper canceled planned appearances in Toronto after the Ottawa shootings.
The shooting also left downtown Ottawa locked down, including the U.S. embassy there, and provincial parliaments elsewhere in Canada tightened their security as heavily armed police continued to comb the Canadian capital.
Medics could be seen attending to a person on the ground near the memorial, which is close to Canada’s House of Commons, before the person was taken away in an ambulance. A witness said she heard four shots and saw a person running away with a rifle.
Bank of Canada Gov. Stephen Poloz postponed the central bank’s planned quarterly policy news conference Wednesday morning because of the shooting.
The shots come at a time of heightened alert in Canada, after two soldiers were run over on Monday in Quebec by a Canadian man whom authorities were investigating for terror links. One of the men was killed and the driver was shot and killed by police after a car chase.
The Ottawa police spokesman said the situation was active and officers were on the site. A spokeswoman with the Sureté du Quebec, the provincial police force, said it was “too soon to say” whether the Ottawa shooting was in any way related to the incident Monday in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu where a “radicalized” Canadian struck the two soldiers. The suspect, identified as Martin Rouleau, was later shot and killed following a high-speed police chase after he fled the scene.
The war memorial in Ottawa, which honors Canadian forces’ service abroad, is the site of the Canadian government’s annual official Remembrance Day ceremony. - wsj
