By Ismail Shakil
OTTAWA (Reuters) -Six people, including the suspect, died and one person was wounded in a shooting at a high-rise condominium building near Toronto on Sunday when a 73-year-old gunman is alleged to have killed his neighbors before being shot dead by police.
Police rushed to the Ontario city of Vaughan, about 50 km (31 miles) north of downtown Toronto, after receiving a call about an active shooter at about 7:20 p.m. ET on Sunday (0020 GMT on Monday), York Regional Police Chief Jim MacSween told reporters.
MacSween said police found the suspect, identified as building resident Francesco Villi, before fatally shooting him in a hallway of the 16-story building. The officer who killed the suspect “very likely saved lives by his actions last night,” MacSween said.
All victims lived in the building. There were three adult men and two adult women who died and a 66-year-old woman in hospital with serious injuries.
“Three victims were members of the condominium board but the motive for the shooting remains part of this very complicated and very fluid investigation which is still ongoing at this time,” he said.
Authorities recovered dead bodies from several floors as well as a semi-automatic handgun that is suspected to be the weapon used in the shooting, a spokesperson for Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) told reporters.
The SIU, which probes deaths involving police, said the suspect’s post-mortem examination was scheduled for Tuesday.
Canada has much stricter gun laws than the United States, but Canadians are allowed to own firearms providing they have a license. Restricted or prohibited firearms, like handguns, must also be registered.
“Everybody is horrified … to wake up to this news this morning, to hear it last night. People are just in absolute shock,” Vaughan Mayor Steven Del Duca said on Monday.
Vaughan has a population of about 320,000.
Canada’s gun homicide rate is a fraction of the United States’ rate, 2020 data showed, but is still higher than other wealthy countries and has been rising. Handguns were the main weapon used in the majority of firearm-related violent crimes between 2009 and 2020.
Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government has been trying to tackle gun violence through measures including a ban on the sale, purchase or transfer of handguns that took effect in October.
“To the families and friends of the victims of yesterday’s shooting in Vaughan: I’m keeping you in my thoughts,” Trudeau said on Twitter.
(Reporting by Ismail Shakil in Ottawa, Jahnavi Nidumolu and Juby Babu in Bengaluru; Editing by Christopher Cushing, Mark Heinrich, Mark Porter and Cynthia Osterman)
