Mass shootingsCanadian Police Looking for Clues Behind Weekend’s Deadly Shooting
Police in Canada are searching for clues about the motives of a gunman who went on a 12-hour rampage across the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, killing sixteen people. It is the deadliest such attack in the country’s history. Mass shootings are rare in Canada, where gun ownership laws are stricter than in the United States. In 1989, a gunman took over a classroom in the Polytechnique of Montreal. He ordered all the male students to leave, then shot the women students left behind, killing fourteen of them. Until this weekend, it was the country’s deadliest shooting.
Police in Canada are searching for clues about the motives of a gunman who went on a 12-hour rampage across the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, killing sixteen people. It is the deadliest such attack in the country’s history.
The gunman was identified as 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman. He was disguised during at least part of the time as a police officer and traveling in vehicle made to look like a police cruiser. The vehicle looked like a police car, with the exception of the license plate which carried a non-police number, allowing the police to broadcast the number and ask the public for help in spotting the vehicle.
Wortman shot people in their homes and set fires to some of these homes before police shot and killed him early Sunday.
A few of the buildings set on fire were empty, the police said.
Police say they were first called late Saturday to a scene at a home in the small, rural town of Portapique, about 100 kilometers north of Halifax, where gunshots were reported. They found several bodies inside and outside the house, which police say is where the rampage started.
Among those killed was Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Constable Heidi Stevenson, a 23-year police veteran.
From his twitter account, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described the attack as “senseless,” saying “Canadians across the country are mourning” with those who lost loved ones.
Neighbors say Wortman owned a successful denture clinic in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and had a strong interest in RCMP and RCMP memorabilia, the Globe reports. He made his car look like a police car more than a year ago.
Police investigators say they were not aware that Wortman had a history of violence, or extremist political views, and that there did not appear to be anything linking him to the victims, or the victims to each other.
The BBC notes that mass shootings are rare in Canada, where gun ownership laws are stricter than in the neighboring United States. Last year, two fugitive teenagers confessed to killing three people, including an Australian-U.S. couple on holiday, in northern British Columbia.
In 2017, university student Alexandre Bissonnette shot dead six worshippers at a Quebec City mosque.
In 1989, a gunman took over a classroom in the Polytechnique of Montreal. He ordered all the male students to leave, then shot the women students left behind, killing fourteen of them.
Until this weekend, it was the country’s deadliest shooting.
