A Montreal hotel shooting on Monday, 22 June 2026, left a police officer and a civilian dead before the gunman was killed, in the first on-duty police death recorded in the city in 24 years.
The attack unfolded in the Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood, as reported by NPR, after a caller reported a man pointing a rifle from a hotel window at about 11:35 (17:35 SAST).
Officers who reached the scene were met almost immediately with sustained gunfire from the building.
What happened in the Montreal hotel shooting
Footage circulated on social media showed the gunman, dressed in camouflage tactical gear, crouched behind a pillar outside the hotel and firing a rifle at two officers standing only a few metres away.
The exchange was brief, chaotic and captured by bystanders before police moved in.
One constable, 34-year-old Mohamed Lamine Benredouane, was killed in the confrontation. A civilian, Michael Moshe Mizrahi, a member of the city’s Jewish community, also died.
A female officer was wounded in the gunfire and rushed to hospital in critical condition, where her status was later upgraded to stable.
Benredouane had served on the force since 2021. His death marks the first time in 24 years that a Montreal police officer has been killed in the line of duty, a detail that has shaken a service unaccustomed to losing members to gunfire in the heart of the city.
What investigators have said about the Montreal hotel shooting
Investigators moved quickly to determine the nature of the attack and concluded that it was not an act of terrorism.
The gunman was shot dead at the scene, bringing the confirmed death toll to three: the constable, the civilian and the suspect, whose identity has not been formally released.
Authorities have flagged that the gunman is believed to have left behind a lengthy manifesto, described as misogynist in tone and as encouraging others to target law enforcement.
Police in other provinces were alerted to the possibility of documentation calling for violence against officers, raising the spectre of copycat attacks.
A homicide unit is now leading the investigation, examining the manifesto, the weapon used and the suspect’s background for any signal of motive.
The civilian’s death in a predominantly Jewish part of the city has also drawn close scrutiny, though police have stressed the motive remains unconfirmed.
What happens next rests on that forensic work and on whether the warning over copycat violence holds.
The force faces a funeral for a fallen constable and a community waiting for answers on why an ordinary Monday turned into the deadliest day its police have known in more than two decades.
