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Gunfire reported in Canada’s Parliament after soldier shot

OTTAWA, Ontario — A gunman shot a Canadian soldier standing guard at the National War Memorial in Ottawa on Wednesday, police said. Witnesses said the gunman entered Parliament and shots rang out.

Multiple shots were fired within the halls of Parliament, and police officers rushed to secure the building and move occupants to safety. At least one gunman was believed to be inside the building.

Police say they are investigating several shooting incidents in downtown Ottawa, including at the National War Memorial, the Rideau Centre, and Parliament Hill.

People fled Parliament by scrambling down scaffolding erected for renovations, witnesses told the Canadian Press news agency. The top spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Harper was safe and had left Parliament Hill.

Live feed from CTV shows what appear to be elite police or military forces taking positions all around Parliament, including on rooftops.

You can watch the feed here http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=6 ... tPageNum=1 .

Multiple shooters involved in Canada attacks

(CNN) -

There was more than one person involved in shootings Wednesday in Ottawa, Canada, Ottawa Police Constable Chuck Benoit told CNN's Jake Tapper. "We have to apprehend and arrest the people that are involved in this morning's incident, and at this time we don't have these people," he said.

U.S. President Barack Obama said Wednesday the shootings in Ottawa emphasize the "degree to which we have to remain vigilant." He told reporters: "We don't yet have all the information about what motivated the shooting. We don't yet have all the information about whether this was part of a broader network, or plan, or whether this was an individual, or series of individuals, who decided to take these actions."

Shots that rang out in the Canadian capital Wednesday left a soldier and a gunman dead, a city on lockdown, and a series of questions about security threats facing the nation.

Parliament member Kyle Seeback called it a "horrific day."

There were two shooting incidents in the city, where this kind of violence is extremely rare: one at the Canada War Memorial, which is near the Parliament building, and another round of shooting inside Parliament.

"I was locking my bike up, and I heard four shots," said Peter Henderson, a journalist who was at the memorial at the time of the shooting. "I saw one of the soldiers laying on the ground."

The soldier appeared to have been shot in the back, Henderson said. Other soldiers who were nearby doing drills at the time ran to help, he said.

"This is a dynamic and unfolding situation. I understand that people have many questions and we are committed to providing some answers as soon as we are able," Assistant Commissioner Gilles Michaud, commanding officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police National Division, told reporters Wednesday.

In Twitter posts Wednesday, several Canadian lawmakers hailed a top security official as a hero, crediting him with shooting the gunman inside Parliament.

"MPs and Hill staff owe their safety, even lives, to Sergeant at Arms Kevin Vickers who shot attacker just outside the MPs' caucus rooms," Craig Scott, a member of Parliament, wrote. [this guy may have prevented a massacre]


A gunman entered the nearby building on Parliament Hill, officials said.

"I heard rapid fire -- gunshots going very loud -- and I figure maybe 20-plus shots within 10 seconds," Canadian Deputy House Leader Kevin Lamoureux told CNN. He was one level below the gunshots.

Soon, Lamoureux and others were outside the building, taken to another building nearby for safety. Others still inside were on lockdown. Some members of Parliament said on Twitter that a gunman had been killed. Police say "one male suspect" is dead.

Canadian authorities have given the name of a suspect to U.S. law enforcement and have asked for FBI assistance in tracing the person's activities, a senior U.S. law enforcement official told CNN. Only one name has been provided, and it is not clear whether the name is genuine or an alias, the official said. The official declined to provide more details, including the suspect's nationality, ethnicity and age.

A U.S. law enforcement official told CNN that a connection to terrorism hasn't been ruled out.

On Monday, a man who Canadian authorities said was "radicalized" killed a Canadian soldier with his car. The man was then shot and killed.

There was no immediate indication that the Monday and Wednesday incidents were related.

In response to the shootings, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, has increased its alert posture, CNN has learned. That means that it has increased the number of planes on a higher alert status ready to respond if needed. NORAD and Canadian authorities are in contact, an official told CNN.

Parliament remained on lockdown at mid-afternoon.

NORAD and Canadian authorities are in contact, an official told CNN.

Reports are that the shooter isn't a terrorist, but rather an individual with serious mental health & drug addiction issues.

OTTAWA -- Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was angry about a delayed passport that thwarted his plans to go to Syria when he shot dead a Canadian soldier and attempted a rampage through the Parliament, authorities said.

Zehaf-Bibeau, a Muslim convert, with a Libyan father and a Canadian mother, applied to renew his passport, but a background investigation raised questions, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Bob Paulson said Thursday.

Authorities conducting the passport investigation thought Zehaf-Bibeau, 32, the son of a Canadian immigration official and a Libyan business man, wanted to go to Libya. Police found out from his mother only yesterday, after police shot Zehaf-Bibeau dead, that he intended to go to Syria, Paulson said.

His motive remains unclear, "but radicalization and the passport figured highly," Paulson said.

Investigators are now piecing together Zehaf-Bibeau's transformation from a petty criminal to a man who identified with a jihadist movement overseas.

Zehaf-Bibeau grew up in Montreal where his mother, Susan Bibeau, worked for the federal government on refugee issues. She and Zehaf-Bibeau's father divorced in 1999. Police say Zehaf-Bibeau may have dual Libyan-Canadian citizenship.

Susan Bibeau told the Associated Press in an email that she hadn't seen her son in five years until she met him for lunch last week. He seemed lost "and did not fit in."

"I am mad at my son," Bibeau wrote in an e-mail to the AP.

She said she mourns only for her son's victims.

"If I'm crying, it's for the people, not for my son," she told the AP in an interview, struggling to hold back tears.

"Can you ever explain something like this?" she said. "We are sorry."

As an adult, Zehaf-Bibeau lived in Calgary and most recently in Vancouver, where he committed low-level crimes, including drug possession, robbery and assault. He was not legally allowed to possess a gun due to his criminal history, but his background check revealed no national security concerns, Paulson said.

Paulson described Zehaf-Bibeau as having a "very developed criminality of violence, drugs and mental instability."

He was not among the 93 "high-risk" travelers that the RCMP monitors as potential foreign fighters for groups such as Islamic State, Paulson said. Canadian intelligence services will review the list to identify those who are most troubling, he said.

Zehaf-Bibeau arrived in Ottawa on Oct. 2 to deal with his passport issues, Paulson said. On Oct. 21, he purchased a beige car that he used Wednesday to get to the site of the memorial, Paulson said. Until Wednesday, he was living in a homeless shelter where police recovered some of his personal items.

Police did find Zehaf-Bibeau's email address on the hard drive of a computer seized from a person arrested on a terrorism offense, Paulson said.