A man has fatally shot two homeless people in a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia, before being shot and killed by police, Canadian authorities said.
Authorities on Monday had earlier issued an emergency alert for multiple shootings in the city of Langley “involving transient victims” and asked residents to stay away from the area.
“We are actively investigating a series of shootings that has left two dead, one in critical condition and another with serious injuries,” said Chief Superintendent Ghalib Bhayani of the regional Royal Canadian Mountain Police force.
“At this time we don’t know the motive behind this deadly incident, nor if there was any relationship between the deceased suspect and the victims.”
The shooting victim in critical condition is a woman, police said, the second injury mentioned is a man shot in the leg.
Mass shootings are less common in Canada than in the United States. In 2017, a gunman in Quebec shot and killed six people in a mosque during evening prayers.
The deadliest gun rampage in Canadian history happened in 2020 when a man disguised as a police officer shot people in their homes and set fires across the province of Nova Scotia, killing 22 people.
Canada had overhauled its gun-control laws after an attacker named Marc Lepine killed 14 women and himself in 1989 at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique college.
It is now illegal to possess an unregistered handgun or any kind of rapid-fire weapon in Canada. To purchase a weapon, training, a personal risk assessment, two references, spousal notification and criminal record checks are required.