The gunman suspected of killing four people and injuring several others in Canada’s worst school violence in a decade first shot his two brothers at home before opening fire at the remote community high school, a family friend and the town’s acting mayor said on Friday.
Police said a suspect was arrested after the shooting in La Loche, Saskatchewan, an impoverished community about 600 km (375 miles) north of the city of Saskatoon.
The town’s acting mayor, Kevin Janvier, told the Associated Press that his 23-year-old daughter Marie, a teacher, was shot to death.
He also said police told him that the gunman first shot two of his siblings at home and then made his way to the school.
Officials have not given a motivation for the shooting or named the suspect or victims.
Mass shootings are rare in Canada, which has stricter gun laws than the United States. In the country’s worst school shooting, 14 college students were killed at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique in 1989. A shooting in 1992 at Concordia University in Montreal killed four.
A family friend said the teenaged suspect shot his two younger brothers before going to the school and shooting a teacher and an assistant.
“After he shot his two brothers, he walked back to school and he shot … a teacher and a girl. They’re both dead. Four of them died,” said Joe Lemaigre, a family friend who lives on the outskirts of La Loche. “I know the family. Their mother worked in Fort McMurray and his grandfather went to Meadow Lake to do some shopping. That’s when he shot them.”
The shooting occurred in the high school and a second location, Canadian police said, adding they took the suspect into custody outside the school and seized a gun.
Chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, which represents more than 70 of the province’s Indian bands, said a few students were in surgery Friday evening in Saskatoon, the province’s largest city.
“Everyone is still in shock and disbelief,” Cameron said. “It’s a very, very horribly tragic event.”
La Loche student Noel Desjarlais told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that he heard multiple shots fired at the school, which has about 900 students.
As usual, propaganda agents pretending to be reporters don’t mention what kind of shrink-drugs he was on.
Oh, Canada gun this time, damn we can’t discriminate now can we.
I guess the education system up there is finally starting to catch up to our high American standards.
But ya gotta do a couple more like…
Columbine.
Sandy hook.
Virginia tech.
Roseburg Oregon.
University of Texas sniper.
You thought the cost of a student loan debt was bad.
Now an education may actually cost you your life!
I betcha we’re #1 in school shootings worldwide. Hands down.
Yes America. We can be proud again at being #1 at something.
“… they took the suspect into custody outside the school and seized a gun.”
This one may have actually happened, considering we don’t have a ‘suspect’ (patsy or otherwise) shot dead by the pigs (which no one actually saw get shot), who will now have to stand trial.
Did not Canada ban the ownership of firearms?? How can this happen???
I live in Alberta, and most people I know have at least a rifle