A Montreal police officer was killed in a shootout on Monday, and for almost three tense hours, city residents were urged to shelter in place as the authorities searched for a suspect.
One gunman was killed at the scene, according to the police, but they urged residents to stay indoors as they searched for a second suspect. In the end, they announced that there had been only one.
“The immediate threat to the public is no longer present,” said the Montreal police chief, Fady Dagher. “Shelter-in-place is no longer required.”
The shooting took place in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood. It appears to have occurred near a high-rise building with commercial units on the ground floor, including a grocery store and a restaurant.
Chief Dagher, said that officers arrived at the scene after receiving reports that a firearm had been seen pointing outside a hotel window. When officers arrived, he said, they were fired upon, and a gunfight ensued.
One officer was killed, and another wounded, as was a civilian, the police said.
“Today, one of ours has fallen in the line of duty,” Chief Dagher said at an afternoon news conference. He said it had been 24 years since a police officer was last killed in the city.
The province of Quebec issued an emergency alert warning of an armed and dangerous suspect on the loose just after 12:30 p.m. It advised people to shelter in place away from windows and to lock their doors.
“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.
