At around 11:30 a.m. on Monday, gunfire erupted in a newly developed commercial hub in central Montreal's Côte-des-Neiges district, near the Hilton Hotel on the corner of De Courtrai and Trans Island avenues.
Shootout and Casualties
In the brief shootout, captured in eyewitness videos posted on social media site X, one police officer was shot while another officer, apparently female, crouched behind a waist-high concrete planter and exchanged fire with a man clad in camo. A second video shows the downed officer rolling onto his back, then onto his stomach as he attempted to crawl away. One video viewed by the National Post, depicting the shooter carrying a long gun, recorded at least 30 shots fired.
The alleged shooter, identified as 25-year-old Seth Hatfield, was killed by police at the scene. The violence claimed the lives of 34-year-old police officer Mohamed Lamine Benredouane and 68-year-old citizen Michael Moshe Mizrahi. Another officer was severely injured but in stable condition, according to police, while another citizen suffered minor injuries.
Police Response and Lockdown
The attack came shortly after police responded to 911 reports of an armed man visible in a window of the Hilton Hotel. The flash of violence, lasting no longer than five minutes, triggered a police lockdown that, according to witness accounts, had people sheltering in place for hours in fear and confusion.
By 11:40 a.m., Ben Clerkin, who published his witness account in The Spectator, had come down the elevator into the Hilton lobby. Through tall glass windows, he saw one male officer lying on the ground, the female officer with her pistol drawn surveying the area. Exiting a side door, Clerkin saw the camouflage-clad body of who he believed to be the shooter, lying dead on the ground. He was soon escorted away by a police officer.
Sequence of Events
The downed officer, initially beside the female officer, appears to have been shot by the gunman crouched behind a white concrete barrier a short distance away. Mizrahi, coming from the direction of the shooter, stood next to the female officer, his eyes looking back toward the shooter. The officer was apparently startled by his appearance behind her as she turned. At that moment, Mizrahi's head snapped to the side as he was apparently shot, falling to the sidewalk in view of both the officer and the shooter. Police have not said who shot him.
The shooter then pursued the female officer from his position down the sidewalk, forcing her to retreat around concrete barrier walls. The gunman, hiding behind the same wall where the female officer had been, appeared to be shot from across the street, rolling onto his back and out of view, the barrel of his gun pointing into the sky.
