symbolic picture
Two people were killed and six others were injured in a shooting late Saturday night in the parking lot of a reception in Ottawa, Canada. While two weddings were taking place at the venue, firing started outside, prompting a stampede among the guests, officials said. “It was chaos, people were running, it was everywhere,” a man who had come to pick up his friend from the wedding told AFP.
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The shooting began at 10:21 pm Saturday (0221 GMT Sunday) in the parking lot of the south-end convention hall, where two separate wedding receptions were being held simultaneously. “The police asked us to stay in our vehicles. We could not leave the scene,” the witness said. Ottawa police have confirmed that two men, aged 26 and 29, from Toronto, Canada’s largest city, have died.
Police said six Americans were among the injured but their lives were not in danger. His identity was not released. “We are in the process of putting the pieces of the puzzle together,” Police Inspector Martin Grolks said of the ongoing investigation. He said police currently have no indication that the shooting was hate-related “related to race or religious beliefs.” “But we are not eliminating this option,”
No arrests had been made as of Sunday afternoon. The two shooting deaths bring to 12 the number of homicides recorded in 2023 in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, which has a population of about one million. According to the Canadian government, many Canadian cities have seen a significant increase in gun violence in recent years and shootings are becoming more frequent. Since 2009, the country has seen an 81 percent increase in violent gun crime.
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