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| Great White North | |
| At least two dead, suspect held in Canada school shooting | |
| 2016-01-23 | |
| [REUTERS] At least two people were killed in a school shooting in a remote area of Saskatchewan, Canada, on Friday and a suspect is in jug, the Star Phoenix newspaper reported, citing local aboriginal chief Teddy Clark. Canadian police declined to confirm to Rooters that there was a shooting at the La Loche school, but said they were on scene for a serious incident in the district, which is about 600 km (375 miles) from the central city of Saskatoon in Saskatchewan province. La Loche Acting Mayor Kevin Janvier said that police confirmed to him that one person was in jug, the Canadian Press reported. "I'm not 100 percent sure what's actually happened but it started at home and ended at the school," Janvier said. Mass shootings are relatively rare in Canada, which has stricter gun laws than the United States. In the country's worst school shooting, 14 college students were killed at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique in 1989. A hospital nurse said a number of people were being treated for gunshot wounds, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported. The La Loche Health Centre and Hospital declined to comment when contacted by Rooters. La Loche Grade 10 student Noel Desjarlais told the CBC that he heard multiple shots fired at the school. "I ran outside the school," Desjarlais said. "There was lots of screaming, there was about six, seven shots before I got outside. I believe there was more shots by the time I did get out." A cellphone video taken by one resident and broadcast by the CBC showed students walking away from the school through the snow-covered ground and emergency personal moving in. La Loche Community School is a pre-kindergarten to Grade 12 school, which houses about 900 students in two buildings. There was an emergency at the building that houses grades 7 to 12, the school district's Facebook page said. Both that building and the elementary school were put on lockdown. Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall issued a statement on the shooting but it did not contain details. "Words cannot express my shock and sorrow at the horrific events today in La Loche. My thoughts and prayers are with all the victims, their families and friends and all the people of the community," the statement said.
A young man shot up around 1:00 pm (1900 GMT) at the school in La Loche, a mainly aboriginal community in the northern part of the province. The suspect was in jug, Trudeau said. | |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 Al Ahram adds that the killer murdered his two younger brothers at home, then walked to school and shot it up, killing a teacher and a student or an assistant, and sending others to the hospital. Plus this background: Among Canada's provinces, Saskatchewan had the highest rate of police-reported family violence in 2014, double the national rate of 243 incidents per 100,000 people, according to a Statistics Canada report on Thursday. Unemployment runs above 20 percent in the area but three-quarters of working-age people are classified as retired or not looking for work, according to 2011 government figures. Residents say the real unemployment rate is above 50 percent. In 2014, a teacher expressed concern about violence at the La Loche school, noting that a student who had tried to stab her was put back in her classroom after serving his sentence, and another attacked her at her home. "That student got 10 months," Janice Wilson told the CBC of the student who tried to stab her in class. "And when he was released he was returned to the school and was put in my classroom." |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2016-01-23 19:24 |
| #1 Latest reports say 4 dead, including the mayor's daughter and 2 brothers of the suspect. nationalpost.com: "The annual suicide rate in the surrounding Keewatin Yatthe Regional Health Authority averages 43.4 suicide deaths per 100,000 people—more than triple the provincial average." |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2016-01-23 00:19 |