timeQuebec City mosque shooting

Quebec City mosque shooting
Sainte-Foy Quebec City mosque shooting (Quebec) Show map of Quebec Quebec City mosque shooting (Canada) Show map of Canada
Location	Sainte-Foy, Quebec City
Coordinates	46°46′41″N 71°18′19″W / 46.77806°N 71.30528°W / 46.77806; -71.30528
Date	January 29, 2017 (2017-01-29) 7:55 p.m. (EST)
Target	Muslim worshippers at a mosque
Attack type	Mass shooting
Deaths	6[1]
Injured	19 (2 critical)[2][3]

A mass shooting occurred on the evening of January 29, 2017, at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City, Canada, a mosque in the Sainte-Foy neighbourhood. Six people were killed and seventeen others injured when a lone gunman opened fire just before 8:00 pm, shortly after the end of evening prayers.^[5]

Fifty-three people were reported present at the time of the shooting.^[6][7] Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier Philippe Couillard called the shooting a terrorist attack.^[6]

The province of Quebec prioritizes immigrants who speak fluent French, and therefore has many Muslim immigrants from former French colonies, including Syria and Lebanon, the Maghreb, and Senegal. In addition a number of Muslim French citizens with family origins in the former French colonies have immigrated to Quebec from France. As a result Arab residents of the province represent a larger share of its population than in any other Canadian province, although like most immigrants, they are concentrated in Montreal, Quebec's largest city.^[8]

The Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City, also known as the Grande Mosquée de Québec, is in the city's Sainte-Foy district in the west end, and is one of several mosques in Quebec City.^[9][10] The mosque is close to the Université Laval, which has many international students from French-speaking, Muslim-majority African countries.^[11] In June 2016, during Ramadan,^[12] it was the target of an Islamophobic^[13] hate crime when a pig's head was left outside the mosque.^[11] That incident prompted the mosque to install CCTV security cameras.^[11]

Quebec City has a low crime rate; in 2015, there were only two homicides in the city.^[11] However, it has an active far-right community, compared to other Canadian cities. A local chapter of Soldiers of Odin said it wanted to "patrol" neighborhoods where Muslims live.^[14]

According to witnesses at the scene, the gunman entered the mosque shortly after the scheduled 7:30 pm prayers began, wearing either a hood or a ski mask.^[11][9] At about 7:55 pm EST, when the first calls to the police were made, he began shooting at worshippers lingering in the mosque after the prayer.^{[7][11][15][10]} A witness said the attacker walked into the mosque after the evening prayer and started shooting anything that moved. According to the same witness, the man left after emptying his weapon.^[16]

In the first press conference held by the Sûreté du Québec, the Quebec provincial police confirmed that six people had been killed and eight more wounded in the shooting. Another thirty-nine people were not hit. However, the Sûreté did not confirm any other details of the attack.^[10][17] A total of nineteen people were injured in the attack, including two people who are in critical condition.^[3][2][18]

The six victims of the shooting were Azzedine Soufiane, 57, owner of a local halal grocery store, Khaled Belkacemi, 60, a professor of soil and agri-food engineering at Université Laval, Abdelkrim Hassane, 41, a civil servant, working as an analyst-programmer and IT expert, Boubaker Thabti, 44, a pharmacy worker, Mamadou Tanou Barry, 42, a civil servant and an IT specialist and Ibrahima Barry, 39, an employee of Quebec health-insurance board. Mamadou and Ibrahima Barry were nationals of Guinea.^[19][20][21]

Two persons of interest were arrested after the shooting. One was later released and is now considered a witness by the authorities.^[22][23] The lone suspect, 27-year-old Alexandre Bissonnette, called police from the area near the bridge to the Ile d'Orléans near the mosque, and told them he was involved and wanted to surrender. He was subsequently charged with six counts of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder.^[24][25][26]

Bissonnette, a student at Laval University, grew up in Cap-Rouge. Neighbours said his father and mother were both present in his life and were "model" parents, adding that there was never a problem with either him or his twin brother.^[27] Former acquaintances say he was "introverted" and sometimes bullied.^[28] Police said he was not on their radar, and he had no court records other than traffic violations.^[28] Before the shooting he had been living in an apartment near the mosque along with his twin brother.^[29][30][31]

People who knew him said he had expressed support for Marine Le Pen and Donald Trump,^[28][27][32] and had far-right, white nationalist and anti-Muslim ideas.^[25][33] The manager of a refugee-support Facebook page said Bissonnette frequently denigrated refugees and feminism online.^[27][28]

Police created a dragnet and closed the bridge to the Île d'Orléans while searching for suspects. One person was detained at the mosque by police. Another surrendered near the Île d'Orléans after he contacted the authorities, proclaimed himself involved, and gave them his location.^[9][15] According to one witness, two attackers who were dressed in black and had a Québécois accent entered the mosque and started shooting. He stated that they shouted "Allahu Akbar" as they shot at people.

Police later determined that there was only one gunman^[34][15][17] and said only one of the detained individuals was considered a suspect. The other was released shortly afterwards, and is now considered a witness.^[22][23] The wrongly-detained individual stated he was outside the mosque when he heard the shooting. After it stopped, he went inside and contacted the authorities. He then administered first aid to victims of the attack. He mistook the arrival of an armed police officer for the shooter returning to the scene, and fled. The police, thinking he was the shooter, arrested him. Another man who proclaimed himself to be involved in the shooting called the authorities at 8:10 p.m.^[18][22]

The injured were transported to different hospitals in Quebec City,^[11] such as the L'Hôpital de l'Enfant-Jésus and the Centre hospitalier de l'Université Laval.^[35] Police began treating the attack as a terrorist incident at 10:00 pm, and activated the SGPCT (structure of police management) protocol, a protocol for acts of terrorism in the region. It gave control of the investigation to the provincial Integrated National Security Enforcement Team—a joint anti-terrorism task force comprising the Montreal police, the Sûreté du Québec, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.^{[10][36][11][37]} At 10:40 pm, police declared the situation under control, with the building secured and the occupants evacuated.^[15]

Philippe Pichet, the chief of Montreal police, and Maxime Pedneaud-Jobin, the mayor of Gatineau, both announced their cities would increase security around local mosques.^[38] Martin Coiteux, the provincial public security minister, said religious buildings in the province would be protectively surveilled, those in the capital by the Quebec City police.^[15]

On January 30, public vigils and gathering were held across Canada to show sympathy to the victims of the shooting, their families and their community.^[39] The largest assembly, held in Québec City, was attended by the prime minister and his wife, and leaders of all official federal parties.^[40] After speeches, a procession walked in silence to the site of the attack and left flowers before the mosque.^[41] The government of Quebec also set up a register of condolences where citizens can send testimonies to the victims of the attack.^[42]

Quebec City Mayor Régis Labeaume declared that the city would stand with the victims' families through what he called a "terrible ordeal that defies reason".^[38] Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard offered solidarity with the families and friends of the victims, and tweeted, "Quebec categorically rejects this barbaric violence."^[15] He also denounced the attack as terrorism and ordered that flags at the National Assembly of Quebec be flown at half-mast.^[15] Labeaume and Couillard, along with Martin Coiteux, the provincial Minister of Public Safety, held a joint press conference and called for unity.^[43] At the conference, Couillard told Quebec's Muslim population "We're with you. You are home, you are welcome in your home. We're all Québécois."^[10]

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also extended his condolences to the victims and denounced the shooting as a "cowardly attack" and as a "terrorist attack on Muslims in a centre of worship and refuge".^{[12][15][38][6]} Various world leaders expressed their condolences over the attack. Pope Francis, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and U.S. President Donald Trump all contacted Prime Minister Trudeau and offered him assistance.^[44][45]

On January 31, Canada officially asked Fox News to retract a tweet which read "Suspect in Quebec mosque terror attack was of Moroccan origin".^[46] Fox News deleted the tweet and apologized.^[47]

• List of massacres in Canada
• List of terrorist incidents in January 2017

• Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec: "Centre Culturel Islamique de Québec" (website)