At Least 16 Killed in Canada’s Worst Mass Shooting
A gunman who at one point masqueraded as a policeman killed at least 16 people in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia during a 12-hour rampage, authorities said yesterday, in what was the country’s worst modern-era mass shooting.
Several buildings in the town were ablaze and police exchanged gunfire at one point with Wortman.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the gunman, 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman, who worked as a denturist, appeared at one stage to have been wearing part of a police uniform. He had also painstakingly disguised his car to look like a police cruiser.
Wortman shot people in several locations in Nova Scotia. There is no indication at this time that the killings were terrorism-related.
Police said there was no apparent link between Wortman and at least some of his victims. They said they had no idea what his motivation might have been.
The death toll exceeded that of a Montreal massacre in 1989 when a gunman killed 15 women. Mass shootings are relatively rare in Canada, which has tighter gun control laws than the United States.
Nova Scotia, like the rest of Canada, is under a stay-at-home order because of the coronavirus pandemic.
