Montreal Police confirmed at a news conference that a police officer, a citizen and the suspect are all dead following a shooting in the city. A second citizen was lightly injured in the incident, which the force said involved a long gun and ended with the suspect being neutralized.
Laying out the toll, police said one of their officers died, a citizen died, and the neutralized suspect also died. They added that a citizen had been lightly hurt. According to the force, a long gun was used in the attack, and the weapon was seized as officers brought the situation under control.
The slain officer was later identified as Mohamed Lamin Ben-Radwan, who was shot and killed responding to the call. The citizen who died was named as Michel Mechazi, a bystander caught up in the violence. Their identification put names to a toll that the force had first described only in numbers.
Police also walked through how the events unfolded over what they described as just an instant. At around 11:35 in the morning, a citizen near a Hilton hotel reported seeing a gun barrel come out of a window and hearing gunshots, prompting a call to police.
Officers responded to that call, and when they arrived they were shot at, leading to an exchange of fire. The shooting took place outside, at street level, before the suspect was brought down and the scene was secured by responding officers.
The death of the officer drew an emotional response from the force. A Montreal police commander said that today, one of us is dead, after the officer was killed carrying out the mission of protecting and serving. He offered his thoughts to the officer's family, to the police of the SPVM, and to officers across Quebec.
Authorities identified the suspect as 25-year-old Seth Scott Hatfield from Lethbridge, Alberta, whom the University of Lethbridge confirmed had been a student there. Investigators said he left behind a long manifesto connected to so-called incel, or involuntary celibate, culture, which criticised targets including capitalism and social media. Police did not provide a motive, and the investigation into the shooting remained ongoing.