One shot dead during Parti Quebecois victory speech
By Jan Ravensbergen, Christopher Curtis, Monique Muise and Charlie Fidelman, The Gazette September 5, 2012 6
MONTREAL - A 62-year-old suspect is in police custody Wednesday after a shooting late Tuesday night as premier-elect Pauline Marois was giving a victory speech.Marois was whisked from the stage by bodyguards at the Metropolis theatre and returned a few moments later unharmed.
Montreal police said the man was “quickly apprehended” after approaching the back of Metropolis, penetrating a vestibule and opening fire.
“For us this is a homicide investigation,” Montreal police spokesman Ian Lafrenière said. (Listen to audio clip describing suspect.)
Television footage showed a heavy-set man in a blue bathrobe and black balaclava yelling: “the anglos are waking up” in French with an English accent as he was led away by police. Then alternating between English and French he added: “There’s going to be f-ing payback. It’s enough. Wanna make trouble.”
The suspect "is not from Montreal. He is a Quebecer," Lafrenière said this morning.
"The suspect is with investigators" but Lafrenière would not disclose where he is being held and said he did not know whether the suspect is expected to make a court appearance Wednesday.
"At this stage in the investigation, there is nothing to indicate any accomplices or other persons implicated," he said.
Footage showed a high-powered rifle, which Twitter users identified as an AK-47 or Valmont Hunter weapon.
Lafrenière said two guns were recovered at the scene but there was no reason to believe there was more than one shooter. (Click here for video of Montreal police briefing.)
Urgences Santé spokesperson Stéphane Smith said a man died on the scene and two others were transported to hospital. (Click here for video of Urgences Santé statement.)
The life of the second shooting victim is no longer considered in danger, Lt. Guy Lapointe of the Sûreté du Québec confirmed this morning. The third person was treated for shock, Smith said.
Lafrenière said the dead man was in his 40s, but refused to say more out of respect for the victim’s family.
However media reports indicate the deceased stagehand and the injured man are both employees of Solotech, a company that had been hired to work at Metropolis on election night. The men were inside the building when they were shot near the artists’ entrance.
Witnesses also said the suspect launched some kind of incendiary device into a nearby Dumpster, igniting it briefly before the flames were doused.
A section of Ste. Catherine St. in front of the Metropolis was been closed as a security perimeter was erected around the scene.
Marois, Quebec’s premier-elect, was rushed from the stage mid-speech by her bodyguards just before midnight after her Parti Québécois won a minority government.
Marois returned to the microphone shortly after and told stunned supporters an “unfortunate incident” had occurred. She asked the crowd to leave the theatre and appealed for calm, saying: “That is what a woman head of government does.”
The incident put a damper on what was a noisy, happy celebration of Marois’s victory as the first woman to lead Quebec.
Sylvain Giguere, a PQ supporter, said after Marois was yanked offstage, “the room went deadly quiet.”
The other party leaders, including outgoing premier Jean Charest and Coalition Avenir Québec leader François Legault denounced the tragic turn of events.Montreal police downplayed how close the suspect got to Quebec’s newly elected premier.
“Yes, he entered inside the theatre, but he was only in the entryway ... a vestibule,” Lafrenière said. “The suspect was quickly apprehended. The incident took place behind the theatre.”
He added that it was too early to speculate about the suspect’s motivations or whether he has a criminal record.
“What was his motive? Those are things we are looking into,” Lafrenière said.
Marois sent out a press release following the shooting saying her thoughts are with the family and friends of the deceased. “All Quebecers are in mourning today because of this act of violence. Never would a society like ours allow violence to dictate our collective choice. It is through democracy that we have to express ourselves, like Quebecers were able to do yesterday.”
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