Toronto, Canada, (EFE).- Canadian police raised the death toll to 11 after a car drove into dozens of people at a street festival in the city of Vancouver on Canada’s Pacific coast on Saturday night, saying the suspected perpetrator was a man with mental problems.
Vancouver’s interim police chief, Steve Rai, added at a news conference that the death toll could rise in the coming hours as the attack, which he said was not an act of terrorism, injured dozens of people, many of them seriously.
“I said it’s the darkest day in Vancouver’s history and I stand by that,” Rai said.
The police officer confirmed that the alleged perpetrator of the massacre, who was arrested at the scene immediately after the hit-and-run, was a person known to police who suffers from mental health issues.
Rai explained that the police do not believe it was a terrorist act because “for terrorism, there should be some political, religious ideology, ideation behind it (…) The history we have with him,” which includes mental health-related incidents, suggests “there wasn’t any other indicators.”
Authorities have not released the identities or ages of the dead. However, Rai said they included men, women and young people.
Asked if there were any children among the dead, as the festival was a family activity for the Filipino-Canadian community, the police chief just said “there were young people.”
The police chief said the incident began at 8:14 pm local time on Saturday on a busy city street at the end of the Filipino-Canadian community street festival, called Lapu Lapu, when tens of thousands of people were still gathering.
The driver of the vehicle, a black Audi SUV, drove into an enclosed area where a crowd had gathered and accelerated, car-ramming bystanders.
On Sunday, the last day of campaigning for Monday’s general election, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said there was “no active threat to Canadians.”
“The attack at the Lapu Lapu festival has left our country shocked, devastated, and heartbroken. To those grieving, to those who were injured, to the Filipino Canadian community, and to everyone in Vancouver: Canada is mourning with you, and we are united behind you,” posted Carney on X, who canceled a campaign rally he was due to attend in Vancouver on Sunday.
Other political leaders have also canceled campaign events scheduled for Sunday. EFE
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