Gunman Panics Ottawa, Killing Soldier in Spree – New York Occasions

Continue reading the main story Video Witness Accounts of Ottawa Shootings

A sampling of video and witness accounts of the shootings in the Canadian capital of Ottawa.

Photo by Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press.

OTTAWA — The heart of the Canadian capital was thrown into panic and placed in lockdown on Wednesday after a gunman armed with a rifle or shotgun fatally wounded a corporal guarding the tomb of the unknown soldier the National War Memorial, entered the nearby Parliament building and fired multiple times before he was shot and killed.

It was the second deadly assault on a uniformed member of Canada’s armed forces in three days — again by someone who appeared to have been motivated by Islamic extremism. The Ottawa attack heightened fears that Canada, a strong ally of the United States in its campaign against the Islamic State militant group convulsing the Middle East, had been targeted in a reprisal, either as part of an organized plot or a lone-wolf assault by a radicalized Canadian.

Law enforcement authorities in Washington said their Canadian counterparts had identified the assailant as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, who had changed his name from Michael Joseph Hall, and said he had been a convert to Islam. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation said he had a criminal history of offenses that included robbery and drug possession.

Continue reading the main story Locations of Shootings in Ottawa

One or more gunmen opened fire at multiple locations in Ottawa on Wednesday.

War Memorial A gunman killed a Canadian Forces soldier who was guarding the National War Memorial.

Parliament Witnesses said the gunman who shot the soldier entered the House of Commons, firing multiple rounds.

Rideau Centre The Ottawa Police Service said that no shootings occurred near the Rideau Centre, reversing an earlier statement.

Downtown Ottawa, ordinarily bustling on a workday, was both shut down and traumatized as police officers rushed to secure the Parliament building, move occupants to safety and hunt for what they initially said were possibly two or three assailants. The lockdown at Parliament dragged into the evening, when armed officers began herding people who had been confined all day into city buses, but the emergency was not lifted.

At a news conference, the Ottawa police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police declined to specify how many more gunmen — if any — they might be seeking, adding to the foreboding in the city, where anxiety ran so high that a National Hockey League game was postponed. The police told reporters that the situation was “dynamic and unfolding.”

The soldier died at a hospital, and the gunman was killed inside the Parliament building, Chief Charles Bordeleau of the Ottawa Police said. The soldier was identified as Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, a member of the army reserve from Hamilton, Ontario. Chief Bordeleau said that two people, whom he did not name, were injured, although not seriously.

The shootings came amid heightened concern among Canadians about terrorist attacks. Two days earlier, a radical jihadist ran over two soldiers at a strip mall in a city south of Montreal, killing one of them.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, an outspoken critic of the Islamic State movement and other militant groups, had been expected to introduce new antiterrorism legislation on Wednesday. “We will not be intimidated,” Mr. Harper said in a television address Wednesday night. He linked the attacks to radicalism inspired by the Islamic State and called them “despicable.”

As members of Parliament gathered for their weekly caucus meetings in the Parliament buildings on Wednesday morning, much of the city was looking forward to the hockey game here between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Ottawa Senators. Then everything suddenly changed.

At 9:52 a.m. calls flooded into Ottawa’s 911 system to report a shooting at the war memorial, which sits isolated southwest of Parliament Hill in a square ringed by busy roads. Television images showed passers-by attempting to revive Corporal Cirillo before an ambulance arrived. His service rifle lay by his side.

Eyewitness accounts varied widely about what happened next and ranged from tales of a carjacking to the assailant simply walking away from his gravely wounded victim.

Although motor vehicles cannot drive onto Parliament Hill, a complex of three buildings surrounding a vast lawn used for national celebrations, without passing through a security inspection, there are numerous, unguarded pedestrian access points.

After dealing with reporters who had buttonholed members of Parliament as they entered their meetings, Greta K. Levy, the New Democratic Party’s caucus press secretary, and a colleague headed out to her office by way of the large, brass doors at the base of the Peace Tower that dominates the center block of Parliament.

“We heard someone yelling ‘gun! gun!’ and we flattened ourselves down on the top of step,” Ms. Levy said Wednesday evening. After nothing apparently had occurred, Ms. Levy looked up to find herself staring at a man walking calmly carrying a rifle or a shotgun aimed forward at his hips.

“He was clearly looking in our general direction, we were two or three feet away, I don’t know at what,” Ms. Levy said. “I didn’t notice anything in his eyes, nothing in his expression.”

Continue reading the main story Video Officers Speak about Ottawa Shootings

In a information convention following Wednesday’s shootings, Canadian officers described the assault and requested electorate to be vigilant.

Photograph by using Justin Tang/The Canadian Press, by way of Related Press.

Seconds after the gunman disappeared into the constructing, Ms. Levy mentioned that loud, extended gunfire broke out. A vacationer crouched beside them, she stated, bursting into tears and pronouncing that her kids have been within.

The trio sooner or later fled throughout the garden towards Royal Canadian Installed Police cruisers.

Throughout the constructing the placement was once puzzled. A large number of individuals advised newshounds that they at the start notion there would possibly had been a fireplace after they had been advised to evacuate.

A video taken with the aid of a reporter for The Globe and Mail confirmed plenty of Home of Commons and Senate guards pursuing anyone down Parliament’s marble lined Corridor of Honor towards the Library of Parliament, a separate constructing hooked up on the rear. Repeated taking pictures may also be heard on its audio.

Within the Conservative caucus room, which exits into the Corridor of Honor, contributors of Parliament piled their huge leather-based chairs towards the door as a barricade.

Chrystia Freeland, a Liberal member of Parliament, stated by way of cellphone that she had heard photographs as she was once heading to her caucus. Ms. Freeland mentioned she used to be amongst many lawmakers rushed to steady basement rooms, when there appeared no approach for them to depart the constructing. “I’m surrounded through greater than a dozen Home of Commons safety guards,” she mentioned.

Julie Van Dusen, a Parliamentary reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Organization, described a scene of misunderstanding. Unable to go away the constructing, she pounded on administrative center doorways, she instructed a neighborhood C.B.C. Radio express, and the personnel of a cupboard minister known her voice and let her in. They piled furnishings towards the door and lay on the ground as silently as that you can think of for just about 5 hours except closely armed police arrived and took them to a stable a part of the constructing.

Mr. Harper used to be whisked away in his motorcade.

There used to be no authentic affirmation of how the gunman died. However Craig Scott, a member of Parliament, credited fifty eight-yr-previous Kevin Vickers, sergeant-at-fingers and a person higher recognized for carrying a ceremonial mace whereas sporting robes, with capturing the gunman simply outdoor the birthday celebration caucus rooms. In a Twitter posting, Mr. Scott stated he and his colleagues “owe their security, even lives,” to Mr. Vickers.

Because the police locked down constructions in downtown Ottawa and requested outlets to shut, an eerie nonetheless, damaged most effective via screaming emergency sirens, descended on the district. Lengthy after the drama on Parliament Hill gave the impression to be settled, teams of closely armed officers ran via parts of downtown, testing constructions. Some warned the few individuals on the streets, primarily journalists, that snipers had been a risk.

As heaps of staff have been trapped in place of business towers and stores, and gridlock developed as convoys carrying closely armed officers carrying defense force-fashion helmets poured into the realm. A big ambulance, designed for a catastrophe like an plane crash, arrange operation.

The straightforward get admission to to the grounds of Parliament Hill mirrored the overall Canadian view that an assault used to be not going. Mr. Harper and different contributors of his cupboard, on the other hand, have ceaselessly warned that terrorist assaults may come to Canada.

In an audio message remaining month, the Islamic State’s spokesman, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, exhorted sympathizers to hold out revenge killings and incorporated Canadians on the record of goal nationalities.

“If that you would be able to kill a disbelieving American or European — particularly the spiteful and filthy French — or an Australian, or a Canadian, or every other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging warfare, together with the electorate of the nations that entered right into a coalition in opposition to the Islamic State, then rely on Allah, and kill him in any method or manner then again it can be,” Mr. Adnani stated.

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