A Montreal police officer was killed in a shootout on Monday that left three dead, and, for almost three tense hours, city residents were urged to shelter in place.
A gunman was killed at the scene, according to the police, who urged residents to stay indoors because an armed suspect was believed to be still at large.
Nearby roads, transit stations and businesses closed. In the end, the police announced that the lockdown orders were only precautionary.
A civilian was also killed and a female officer was wounded, according to the Montreal police chief, Fady Dagher.
“It’s a tragedy and a nightmare,” he said, adding that investigators had recovered a long gun at the scene.
Chief Dagher said that officers had arrived at the scene in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood, in northwest Montreal, after receiving reports that a firearm had been seen pointing from a hotel window. When officers arrived, he said, they were fired upon and a gunfight ensued.
Mordy Aisenstark, a manager at a pizza restaurant near the site of the shooting, said he heard “cracks from the gunshots” at around 11:30 a.m. on Monday.
Mr. Aisenstark gathered his employees and fled to the back of his store. Later, he saw what appeared to be the shooter, clad in camouflage, lying dead on the ground next to a firearm. After law enforcement arrived, the employees of the pizza shop were led to a bathroom in another part of the building and told to shelter in place.
“Today, one of ours has fallen in the line of duty,” Chief Dagher said at an afternoon news conference, adding that it had been 24 years since a police officer was last killed in the city.
“My deepest condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of the police officer who died in the line of duty,” Soraya Martinez Ferrada, the mayor of Montreal, said in a post on social media.
Zane Irwin contributed reporting from New York.
