Student Shot Dead As Gunman Attacks College

One woman was killed and 19 people were wounded yesterday when a black-clad gunman opened fire in the cafeteria of a busy college in Montreal. Eight people were left critically injured before he was shot dead by police.

The rampage began at about 12.30pm when the gunman, described as a college-age male dressed in a trench coat and black boots, got out of his car near a shopping mall in the centre of the city and began shooting an automatic rifle at random.

He then entered the campus of Dawson College, a university preparatory institution with 10,000 students. Once inside, he headed for the cafeteria and took up a position near a vending machine.

"At first he was just shooting into the air," student Kayla Diorio, who was at the scene, told the Montreal Gazette. "A guy next to me was telling me: 'It's going to be OK.' Everybody was screaming and crying."

Hundreds of students fled down Montreal's main shopping street. As news of the shooting spread, nearby shopping centres were evacuated and Montreal's underground shut down for several hours as police searched for possible accomplices.

The woman killed by the gunman was in her 20s; she died later from her wounds.

Police arrived three minutes after the gunman entered the cafeteria, officials said. "They saw a suspect shooting inside the walls of Dawson," the Montreal police chief, Yvan Delorme, told a news conference. "So the first policeman took charge of the situation, and shot in the direction of the suspect, and the suspect died."

An office worker at a building overlooking the school told the Gazette she saw police dragging a young man outside.

"They were dragging him by the arm," Andrea Young told the paper. "He was totally limp and there was blood pouring from his head. He was dressed completely in black with dark boots on. He was very seriously wounded. They handcuffed him, turned him over and he wasn't moving. Then, they covered his body."

Police dismissed suggestions that the violence had been racially motivated or connected to terrorism. "There's no information that leads us to believe that it's something other than what happened at the scene," said a spokesman.

Speaking last night, the Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, said the country had witnessed "a cowardly and senseless act of violence".

He added: "Our primary concern right now is to ensure the safety and recovery of all those who were injured during this tragedy."

Montreal has been the scene of two previous campus shootings. In 1989, a gunman shot dead 14 female engineering students at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, screaming "I hate feminists" before killing himself. Three years later, a professor at Concordia University killed four colleagues.