Police in western Canada yesterday were investigating the “senseless mass murder” of six adults and two children, who were apparently slain by a depressed man who later killed himself.
Edmonton Police Service Chief Rod Knecht said the killings — the worst ever in Edmonton — were “planned and deliberate,” and apparently were carried out during a domestic dispute.
The killings began late on Monday in the southern part of Edmonton, a city of nearly 1 million people in the province of Alberta, where a man shot to death a woman in her 30s, Knecht said.
The man then headed to a residence in the north of the city, where he killed another seven people — three women, two men, a girl and a boy.
Alerted by reports of a disturbance, police on Monday went first to a home where they discovered the body of the first female victim.
Later that evening, they went to investigate reports of a “suicidal male” at a house in the north of the city.
An initial visit to the house showed nothing out of the ordinary, but when police returned a few hours later and entered the home, they discovered the bodies of the seven slain people.
The body of the suspected killer, an apparent suicide, was found early on Tuesday in a Vietnamese restaurant in Fort Saskatchewan, a northeastern suburb of Edmonton.
Authorities said that the suspect “had a business interest” in the restaurant where his body was found.
The names and ages of the victims and their alleged killer were not immediately released.
Knecht said the suspect had a criminal record of sexual assault and violence dating back to 1987, and that he was in deep financial distress.
A woman told the Edmonton Journal newspaper that she had heard noises on Monday outside the restaurant.
She saw several police officers, one of whom yelled through a megaphone to someone in the restaurant: “Come out with your hands up.”
Detectives went on to find a dead man inside and quickly identified him as the suspected killer.
Knecht said that the public was not at any risk.
“This series of events are not believed to be random acts,” he said at a news conference. “And these events do not appear to be gang-related, but rather tragic incidents of domestic violence.”
“Our thoughts go out to the community... with this senseless mass murder,” the police chief added.
The killings were the worst-ever in Edmonton, where six people were slain in a tragic incident in 1956.
Mass killings and gun crime are relatively rare in Canada compared with the US, where gun ownership is also much more widespread.
A long line of people on Sunday snaked across the sand of Miami Beach, Florida, as dozens of travelers from Latin America waited their turn at a pop-up COVID-19 vaccination booth. Sweating under the afternoon sun, visitors checked into an online system — no proof of residence required — and soon after received a free, single-dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and a vaccination card. People had come from all over Latin America — Ecuador, El Salvador, Venezuela — where the vaccine rollout has been slow and hampered by supply shortages. “In my country, [COVID-19] is getting out of hand and there’s
A man was left stranded on a glass-bottomed suspension bridge in northeastern China after sudden gale-force winds shattered the transparent panels around him. The man was on the 100m-high bridge at Piyan Mountain in Longjing city, when it was hit by sudden strong weather, the local tourism department said. TRAPPED Gusts of up to 150kph blew out several glass panels, trapping the tourist until he could be rescued by firefighters, police, and forestry and tourism personnel more than half an hour later. Photographs shared on social media showed the man clinging to the side of the bridge, surrounded by gaping holes where the
‘COVERT’ ACTIVITY: The High Court ruled against a Chinese-born Australian former adviser to a state lawmaker, who allegedly advanced ‘policy goals of a foreign principal’ A Chinese-born Australian political adviser yesterday lost his challenge in Australia’s highest court against laws banning covert foreign interference in domestic politics. John Zhang (張智森) also lost his Australian High Court challenge in a unanimous decision of seven judges to the validity of search warrants executed by police at his Sydney home and offices last year as part of an investigation into illegal foreign interference on behalf of China. Zhang was an adviser to New South Wales Lawmaker Shaoquett Moselmane, whose membership in the opposition Labor Party was suspended after he was also the target of police raids. The raids in June last
US actress Scarlett Johansson on Saturday urged the film industry to “step back” from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) as criticism of the opaque film industry group, which controls the Golden Globe awards, continues to mount for sexism and racism. The Avengers star said in a statement that the “HFPA is an organization that was legitimized by the likes of Harvey Weinstein to amass momentum for Academy recognition.” Johansson said that “as an actor promoting a film,” participating in the organization’s news conferences and award shows “has often meant facing sexist questions and remarks by certain HFPA members that bordered on
RSS