Video: Shootout at Canadian Parliament
Chaos in Ottawa.
A Canadian soldier was shot at a war memorial in Ottawa this morning. Parliament Hill then went into lockdown, two other shootings in the area have been reported, one alleged shooter has been killed, and there are reports of other gunmen at large. Beyond that, the facts are pretty cloudy. For a sense of the chaos, here's some footage of police firing their weapons during a sweep of a Parliament building:
The video was shot by The Globe and Mail's Josh Wingrove.
Many Canadians are already on edge because of a Monday incident in Quebec, in which a recent convert to Islam deliberately hit two soldiers with a car, killing one. Whether or not that attack turns out to be linked to today's violence, we're pretty much guaranteed to see speculation that it is.
Stay tuned to 24/7 for more developments.
Update: One of the three reported shootings—an alleged attack at the Rideau Centre mall—turns out not to have happened.
Update #2: There were two shootings and one gunman. The killer's confederates, like the Rideau Centre attack, belong in the same box of rumors as the tales of additional attacks that circulated on 9/11: the alleged car bomb at the State Department, explosion at the Capital, fire on the National Mall, and so on.
