Canada shooting: 17 year old charged with murder
Canadian authorities have charged a 17 year old boy with four counts of murder and seven counts of attempted murder over the shooting spree in a home and nearby school in La Loche, Canada. The youth was also charged with one count of unauthorized possession of a firearm. The youth's identity has been withheld based on Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act.
4 people were killed in a school shooting in La Loche, a small community of about 3,000 people in the western Canadian province of Saskatchewan. At around 1 pm CST, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police received a call about an "active shooter". The suspect was detained within 45 minutes, and Saskatchewan's air ambulance was dispatched to the site of the violence.
The identities of the victims and the shooter are yet to be released as the investigation is still on going. However, Kevin Janvier, the acting mayor of La Loche, confirmed that his 23-year old daughter, Marie, was one of the victims. Janvier also said that the shooter had first shot two of his own siblings at his residence before moving on to the school.
Noel Desjarlais, a Grade 10 student at the school in La Loche, told CBC news, "There was lots of screaming. There was about six, seven shots before I got outside." School coordinator Norma Janvier, who was in her office when shots were fired, expressed her disbelief to a local newspaper, saying, "I didn't know what was going on...all I heard was cops running around."
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was in Switzerland, expressed his grief, saying, "The country's heart is breaking for the people of La Loche, Saskatchewan today." "Words cannot express my shock and sorrow at the horrific events today in La Loche," said Brad Wall, the premier of Saskatchewan. US Ambassador Bruce A. Heyman extended his "deepest condolences" for the victims' families and loved ones.
The school shooting at La Loche came almost a decade after the last school shooting in Canada. The last school shooting to take place in Canada was in 2007, when a 15 year old boy was killed in Toronto.
