Shooting in Montreal, Canada leaves 3 dead including suspect

A midday shooting in Montreal killed three people on Monday, including a police officer, a civilian and the alleged gunman, triggering rare levels of shock across the Canadian city.

The bloodshed took place in a partly Jewish neighbourhood that includes kosher markets and restaurants but police declined to comment on what the motive might have been and whether the incident amounted to a hate crime or act of terror.

French language public broadcaster Radio Canada said the shooter was connected to “incel” ideology – a misogynistic worldview that fuelled the man responsible for one of Canada’s most deadly mass killings, a 2018 vehicle-ramming in Toronto that killed 10.

Incel means “involuntarily celibate”, and is linked to heterosexual men driven to extremism over their apparent inability to find female partners.

Montreal police chief Fady Dagher said Monday’s incident was “a tragedy, a nightmare”.

Dagher said someone called emergency services at around 11.35am local time about a person who was sticking a gun out of a window at the Hilton hotel. Police arrived at the scene and were targeted with gunfire, he said. Video showed the shooter was also outside the hotel.