Six dead in mass shooting near Toronto

A person walks past the scene after a fatal mass shooting at a condominium building in the Toronto suburb of Vaughan, Ontario, Canada December 19, 2022. REUTERS/Carlos Osorio

OTTAWA -Six people, including a 73-year-old suspect, died and one person was seriously injured in a shooting at a residential building in the city of Vaughan in Canada’s Ontario province on Sunday night, local police said.

The York Regional Police Department said it was working to confirm the identities of the victims and inform their families. Vaughan, which is less than 50 km (31 miles) north of downtown Toronto, is located in Ontario’s York region and has a population of about 320,000.

Authorities have not released more information about the victims, the suspect, or the suspect’s motive.

York police responded to a call about an “active male shooter who had shot several victims” at a condominium in Vaughan at about 7:20 p.m. local time on Sunday (0020 GMT on Monday), the department said.

The suspect was shot at by police and pronounced dead at the scene, Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) said in a statement on Monday.

Vaughan Mayor Steven Del Duca expressed condolences to the families of the victims at a press conference on Monday and said the wounded person was recovering at a hospital.

“Everybody is horrified … to wake up to this news this morning, to hear it last night. People are just in absolute shock,” Del Duca said.

The SIU, which investigates deaths involving police, said it was looking into the death of the suspect and that a post-mortem was scheduled for Tuesday.

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.