At around 11:30 a.m. on Monday morning, the crack of gunfire began ringing out in a newly developed commercial hub in central Montreal’s Côte-des-Neiges district.
In the brief shootout that ensued, and captured through eyewitness videos that were later posted on social media site X, one police officer was shot while another officer, apparently female, crouches behind a waist-high concrete planter and exchanges fire with a man clad in camo. In a second video, the downed police officer is seen rolling onto his back, then onto his stomach as he attempts to crawl away. One video viewed by the National Post, which shows the shooter carrying a long gun, records at least 30 shots fired.
The alleged shooter, identified as 25-year-old Seth Hatfield, was killed by police on the scene. The violence also claimed the lives of 34-year-old police officer Mohamed Lamine Benredouane and Michael Moshe Mizrahi, a 68-year-old citizen. Another officer was severely injured but in stable condition, according to police, while another citizen suffered minor injuries.
The attack came shortly after police had responded to 911 reports of an armed man who could be seen in the window of the Hilton Hotel, located on the corner of De Courtrai and Trans Island avenues, where the shooting took place.
The flash of violence, which lasted no longer than five minutes, then turned into 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 the tall glass windows, he saw one male officer lying on the ground, the female officer still with her pistol drawn and surveying the area.
By exiting a side door, Clerkin saw the camouflage-attired body of who he believed to be the shooter, lying dead on the ground. He was soon escorted away from the scene by a police officer.
The downed officer, who was initially beside the female officer, appears to have been shot by the gunman who was crouched behind a white concrete barrier a short distance away. The 68-year-old Mizrahi, who was coming from the direction of the shooter, comes to stand next the female officer, his eyes looking back in the direction of the shooter. The officer is apparently startled by his appearance behind her as she turns around. At that moment, Mizrahi’s head snaps to the side as he is 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 pursues the female officer from his position down the sidewalk, forcing her to retreat around the concrete barrier walls. The gunman, then hiding behind the same concrete wall where the female officer had been, appears to be shot from across the street, rolling onto his back and out of view, the barrel of the gun pointing into the sky.
In one video, captured from a balcony directly above the scene shortly after the violence, the side profile of the alleged shooter’s face can be seen resting lifelessly on the sidewalk’s black and white concrete tiles. A few feet away, the officer’s body lies on the ground in a trail of blood.
Yosef Hadad, the owner of the nearby family restaurant Deli 770, told CTV News that he had heard the “whistling of bullets” from the balcony of his home, and saw the officer fall to the ground immediately in front of him.
Witness Valerie Krief, according to her account in the Montreal Gazette, said she was leaving a dentist appointment with her son at the time of the shooting, when she heard loud noises that she first thought were coming from a nearby construction site. Her read of the situation changed quickly after she saw glass breaking across the street.
“We saw people running from the street onto the parking lot where we were, and some people were hiding under their cars,” she said.
“One person was yelling: ‘There’s a shooter. There’s shooting. Go back in the mall.’”
In the chaotic aftermath of the shooting, Montreal residents were ordered into a lockdown as officers sought to confirm whether a second shooter was at large. Police later confirmed that the gunman was operating alone.
The lockdown wasn’t lifted until around 3:15 p.m., according to accounts, leaving some witnesses separated from family and friends. Clerkin said he was able to speak to his wife and children — who were back in their hotel room — on the phone, but was physically restricted from returning back to them.
In several videos, police are seen searching the street and storefronts near where the shooting occurred in an effort to secure the area.
In one such video, a cluster of five officers are seen entering the nearby Supermarché PA, which was put under lockdown. A separate video captured inside the store and posted on Facebook shows two female officers inside the supermarket, pistols drawn, as shoppers hunker down in the aisles.
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