Gunman storms Canadian parliament

OTTAWA: Gunfire echoed through the Gothic halls of the Canadian parliament on Wednesday as police shot dead a gunman who had killed a soldier guarding a nearby war memorial before storming the building.

Police said an investigation was continuing, but did not confirm earlier reports that more gunmen were involved. Heavily armed officers backed by armored vehicles sealed off the building.

There was no immediate word on the gunman’s motivation, but the attack came a day after an alleged militant drove over and killed another soldier in what authorities branded a terrorist attack.

Authorities had raised the security threat level from low to medium after the car attack, which came as Canadian jets were to join the US-led air armada bombarding militants in Iraq.

“One shooting victim succumbed to injuries. He was a member of the Canadian forces. Our thoughts and prayers are with his loved ones,” the Ottawa Police and Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.

“One male suspect has also been confirmed as deceased,” they said, in a joint statement, calling on witnesses to come forward and for residents to stay clear of Ottawa’s downtown area.

Lawmakers, staff and reporters evacuated from the building spoke of intense gunfire in the historic building on Parliament Hill.

Video footage posted online by the Globe and Mail newspaper showed police ducking for cover as they advanced along a stone hallway, loud gunfire echoing among parliament’s stone columns.

A member of parliament, Maurice Vellacott, told AFP that House of Commons security had told one of his aides that the suspect had been killed inside parliament.

“I literally had just taken off my jacket to go into caucus. I hear this ‘pop, pop, pop,’ possibly 10 shots, don’t really know,” Liberal Party member John McKay told reporters outside.

“Suddenly the security guards come rushing down the hallways and usher us all out to the back of the parliament buildings,” he said, as lawmakers, staff and reporters scurried from the area.

Witnesses at the scene said they saw a man armed with a rifle running into parliament after shooting a guard at the war memorial.

Passers-by told reporters that a bearded man had gunned down the soldier and hijacked a passing vehicle to take him the short distance to Parliament Hill, on a bluff over the Ottawa River.

One witness, parliamentary aide Marc-Andre Viau, said he saw a man run into a caucus meeting at the parliament, chased by police armed with rifles who yelled “take cover.”

That was followed by “10, 15, maybe 20 shots,” possibly from an automatic weapon, he said.

“I’m shaken,” said Viau.

Police raced to seal off the parliament building and the office of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, pushing reporters and bystanders further back and blocking roads with squad cars.

Harper -- who was attending a meeting with lawmakers at the time -- left the area of the shooting and was “safe,” his spokesman Jason MacDonald said.

In Canada’s southern neighbor the United States, the White House said President Barack Obama had been briefed on the situation and an official said US and Canadian air defenses were on alert.

The US embassy in Ottawa was placed on lockdown.


Published in The Express Tribune, October 23^rd, 2014.