Trudeau calls for unity amid Canada mass shooting

Canadians on Monday mourned the shocking rampage that left 18 dead in rural communities across Nova Scotia, after a gunman disguised as a police officer opened fire on people hunkered down in their homes, setting houses ablaze in the deadliest mass shooting in the country's history.

Officials said the suspect, identified as 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman, was also among the dead in the weekend attack. Police did not provide a motive for the killings.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the gunman killed at least 18 people during the 12-hour rampage over a large swath of northern Nova Scotia.

"The vast majority of Nova Scotians will have a direct link with one or more of the victims. The entire province and country is grieving right now as we come to grips with something that is unimaginable," Trudeau said.

"The pandemic will prevent us from mourning together in person, but a vigil will be held virtually to celebrate the lives of the victims," Trudeau said, adding it would take place Friday night through a Facebook group.

Trudeau asked the media to avoid mentioning the name of the assailant or showing his picture.

"Do not give this person the gift of infamy," he said.

Police began advising residents overnight Saturday in the rural town of Portapique, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of Halifax, to lock their doors and stay in their basements. The town, like all of Canada, had been adhering to government advice to remain at home because of the coronavirus pandemic and most of the victims were inside their homes when the attack began.

Several bodies were later found inside and outside one home on Portapique Beach Road, the street where the suspect lived, authorities said.

Bodies were also found at several other locations within about a 50-kilometer (30-mile) area from the neighborhood where the shootings began late Saturday, and authorities believe the shooter may have targeted his first victims but then began attacking randomly. Several homes in the area were set on fire.

Authorities said the suspected gunman wore a police uniform at one point and made his car look like a Royal Canadian Mounted Police cruiser.

Police initially said Wortman had been arrested Sunday at a gas station in Enfield, outside Halifax, but later said he had died. It was not clear how, and they did not provide further details, although one police official said that there was an exchange of gunfire between the suspect and police at one point.

Mass shootings are relatively rare in Canada. The country overhauled its gun-control laws after gunman Marc Lepine killed 14 women and himself at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique college in 1989. Before this weekend's rampage, that had been the country's worst mass killing.