Canadian police say 10 people have died at 13 locations in two Saskatchewan communities
Canadian police say 10 people have died at 13 locations in two Saskatchewan communities
A series of knife attacks in two communities in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan left 10 people dead and 15 injured, authorities said on September 4. The police are looking for two suspects.
The stabbings took place at several locations in James Smith’s Cree Nation and in the village of Weldon, northeast of Saskatoon, police said.
Rhonda Blackmore, assistant commissioner for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Saskatchewan, said some of the victims appear to have been targeted by the suspects, but others appear to have been randomly attacked. She could not provide a reason.
“It’s horrible what happened in our province today,” said Ms. Blackmore.
She said there are 13 crime scenes where dead or injured people have been found.
Police said the last information they had from the public was that the suspects were seen in Regina, Saskatchewan’s capital, around lunchtime. There have been so many sightings since.
“If in the Regina area, take precautions and consider sheltering in place. Don’t leave a safe place. DO NOT APPROACH suspicious people. Do not pick up hitchhiking hikers. Report suspicious people, emergencies or information to 9-1-1. Do not release police locations,” RCMP said in a Twitter post.
The search for suspects was carried out as fans traveled to Regina for an annual sold-out Labor Day game between the Canadian Football League’s Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
The Regina Police Department said in a news release that with the assistance of the RCMP, it was working on multiple fronts to locate and apprehend the suspects and had “deployed additional public safety resources throughout the city, including the football match at Mosaic Stadium”.
The alert first issued by RCMP in Melfort, Saskatchewan at around 7 a.m. was extended hours later to cover Manitoba and Alberta with the two suspects still at large.
Damien Sanderson, 31, was described as five-foot-seven and 155 pounds, and Myles Sanderson, 30, was six-foot-one and 200 pounds. Both have black hair and brown eyes and could drive a black Nissan Rogue.
The Saskatchewan Health Authority said multiple patients were being treated at multiple sites.
“A call for additional personnel has been made to respond to the influx of injured people,” authorities spokeswoman Anne Linemann said in an email.
Mark Oddan, a spokesman for STARS Air Ambulance, said two helicopters were dispatched from Saskatoon and another from Regina.
He said two transported patients to Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon, while the third transported a patient to Royal University from a hospital in Melfort, a short distance southeast of Weldon.
Mr Oddan said that due to privacy laws he could not divulge information about their age, gender or condition.
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