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Gunman identified in shooting at Canada's Parliament (w/video)

 
Paramedics and police pull a victim away from the Canadian War Memorial in Ottawa on Wednesday.  A soldier standing guard at the National War Memorial in Ottawa has been shot by an unknown gunman and people report hearing gunfire inside the halls of Parliament.  The gunman reportedly ran towards Parliament Hill, which is currently under lockdown and surrounded by security.  Prime Minister Stephen Harper was rushed away from the building to an undisclosed location, officials in his office said. [Associated Press]
Paramedics and police pull a victim away from the Canadian War Memorial in Ottawa on Wednesday. A soldier standing guard at the National War Memorial in Ottawa has been shot by an unknown gunman and people report hearing gunfire inside the halls of Parliament. The gunman reportedly ran towards Parliament Hill, which is currently under lockdown and surrounded by security. Prime Minister Stephen Harper was rushed away from the building to an undisclosed location, officials in his office said. [Associated Press]
Published Oct. 23, 2014

OTTAWA, Ontario

T he heart of the Canadian capital was thrown into panic and placed in lockdown on Wednesday after a gunman armed with a rifle or shotgun fatally wounded a corporal guarding the tomb of the unknown soldier at the National War Memorial, entered the nearby Parliament building and fired multiple times before he was shot and killed.

It was the second deadly assault on a uniformed member of Canada's armed forces in three days — again by someone who appeared to have been motivated by Islamic extremism. The Ottawa attack heightened fears that Canada, a strong ally of the United States in its campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, had been targeted in a reprisal, either as part of an organized plot or a lone-wolf assault by a radicalized Canadian.

Law enforcement authorities in Washington said their Canadian counterparts had identified the assailant as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, who had changed his name from Michael Joseph Hall, and said he had been a convert to Islam. The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. said he had a criminal history of offenses that included robbery and drug possession.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, an outspoken critic of ISIS and other militant groups, had been expected to introduce new anti-terrorism legislation Wednesday. "We will not be intimidated," Harper said in a television address Wednesday night. He linked the attacks to radicalism inspired by ISIS and called them "despicable."

Downtown Ottawa, ordinarily bustling on a workday, was both shut down and traumatized as police officers rushed to secure the Parliament building, move occupants to safety and hunt for what they initially said were possibly two or three assailants. The lockdown at Parliament dragged into the evening, when armed officers began herding people who had been confined all day into city buses, but the emergency was not lifted.

At a news conference, the Ottawa police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police declined to specify how many more gunmen — if any — they might be seeking, adding to the foreboding in the city, where anxiety ran so high that a National Hockey League game between the Ottawa Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs was postponed.

The soldier died at a hospital, and the gunman was killed inside the Parliament building, Chief Charles Bordeleau of the Ottawa Police said. The soldier was identified as Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, a member of the army reserve from Hamilton, Ontario. Bordeleau said that two people, whom he did not name, were injured, although not seriously.

As members of Parliament gathered for their weekly caucus meetings in the Parliament buildings on Wednesday morning, much of the city was looking forward to the hockey game. Then everything changed.

At 9:52 a.m. calls flooded into Ottawa's 911 system to report a shooting at the war memorial. Television images showed passers-by attempting to revive Cirillo before an ambulance arrived. His service rifle lay by his side.

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Eyewitness accounts varied widely about what happened next and ranged from tales of a carjacking to the assailant simply walking away from his gravely wounded victim.

Although vehicles cannot drive onto Parliament Hill without passing through a security inspection, there are numerous, unguarded pedestrian access points.

After dealing with reporters who had buttonholed members of Parliament as they entered their meetings, Greta K. Levy, the New Democratic Party's caucus press secretary, and a colleague headed out to her office by way of the large, brass doors at the base of the Peace Tower that dominates the center block of Parliament.

"We heard someone yelling 'gun! gun!' and we flattened ourselves down on the top of step," Levy looked up to find herself staring at a man walking calmly carrying a rifle or a shotgun aimed forward.

"He was clearly looking in our general direction, we were two or three feet away, I don't know at what," Levy said. "I didn't notice anything in his eyes, nothing in his expression."

Seconds after the gunman disappeared into the building, Levy said that loud, prolonged gunfire broke out. A tourist crouched beside them, she said, bursting into tears and saying that her children were inside.

The trio eventually fled across the lawn toward Royal Canadian Mounted Police cruisers.

Julie Van Dusen, a parliamentary reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., described a scene of confusion. Unable to leave the building, she pounded on office doors, she told a local CBC Radio show, and the staff of a Cabinet minister recognized her voice and let her in. They piled furniture against the door and lay on the floor as silently as possible for nearly five hours until heavily armed police arrived and took them to a secure part of the building.

Harper was whisked away in his motorcade.

There was no official confirmation of how the gunman died. But Craig Scott, a member of Parliament, credited Kevin Vickers, 58, sergeant-at-arms and a man better known for carrying a ceremonial mace, with shooting the gunman just outside the party caucus rooms. In a Twitter posting, Scott said he and his colleagues "owe their safety, even lives," to Vickers.