Just before 10 am today, a man with a
hunting rifle walked calmly up to a soldier on duty at the national war memorial in
Ottawa and shot him in the chest from a couple of meters away. The soldier was
mortally wounded and died shortly afterwards in the trauma unit at the Ottawa
Civic Hospital.
The shooter moved to the Centre Block of
Parliament about 150 meters away, got in the front entrance below the Peace
Tower. There was an exchange of gunfire
with many armed guards, and the shooter died on the spot. As so often happens
in such episodes, the actions of law enforcement authorities left no
possibility of answering several important questions. It is unfortunate
that the shooter is not available for interrogation. Continuous radio and TV coverage from 10 am to
mid afternoon gave me an impression of hasty and rather thoughtless
over-reaction and irrational responses to rumors and misinformation. Public
buildings, government offices and the large shopping mall a few hundred meters
away – and the University of Ottawa about 300-400 meters away – went into
lock-down while the rumors swirled. So far as it’s possible to say at this
stage, panicky stories of other shooters in the shopping mall, snipers on
rooftops, and an assault on the Israeli embassy, are all groundless. Two other
victims of gunshots taken to the Civic Hospital today were probably “caught in
the crossfire” of the assassination at the national war memorial or perhaps
were shot during the barrage of gunfire that killed the original shooter after
he got through the front door of the Centre Block. Law enforcement officials may tell us in due
course exactly what happened. At this early stage there seems to be no evidence
of a carefully planned attack by a well-trained team like the one that
assaulted the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai a few years ago. My preliminary guess
is that the attack was carried out by a solitary shooter, most likely one of
the young Jihadis who has been seduced by the messages of ISIS.
No doubt there will be much tightening of
existing security measures. So far, among the first to be announced is one that
sends a decidedly mixed message: members of Canadian armed forces are ordered
NOT to wear uniforms when leaving their bases off duty; at such times they must
wear civilian clothing.
One observation: I’m rather surprised that
it’s taken so long for a terrorist episode to occur in Ottawa. About 30 years
ago, a Turkish diplomat was shot by an Armenian nationalist not far from where
we lived at the time, but that was a manifestation of the chronic animosity
between Turks and Armenians. There have long been reasons for Islamic
extremists to dislike actions by our current government. Ottawa offers them
many tempting and easy targets to attack. Security will surely be tightened and
getting about in the city centre will probably become cumbersome and difficult.
I fear that the grand boulevard of Wellington Street in front of Parliament
Hill might become hard to navigate. Fortunately I don’t have many reasons to go
up to the Hill these days. I feel much empathy for all those who do.
A month later the dust has settled. Although he died on the scene enough facts have emerged to confirm that the perpetrator was emotionally disturbed, an addict, acted alone, wasn't a member of a terrorist group, and had no coherent plan other than to cause as much death as he could. he had a two-shot hunting rifle, hardly a suitable weapon to assassinate multiple members of Parliament. The defenceless sentry guarding the tomb of the unknown warrior was his only victim.
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