Today was an exciting day – and not in a good way…
It now seems more than likely that today’s shooting was a terrorist attack – jihad performed by a home-grown terrorist, as the shooter was known to the police and had had his passport confiscated for fear that he would go join ISIL.
ISIL is reportedly showing off pictures of him.
And, ISIL also commanded its minions that if they cannot go to Syria/Iraq to join ISIL there to go ahead and carry out terrorist attacks against people in their home countries.
Which is what happened at Saint-Jean-Sur-Richelieu on Monday.
And which seems to have happened here, in Ottawa, today.
So, here are some videos from today:
First, this is the War Memorial where the first shooting and the murder of the Canadian Soldier, Cpl. Nathan Cirillo took place as he stood honour guard as the Memorial. (Aside – whose idiotic idea was it to have the honour guards have unloaded weapons?)
You can see the group of people where ordinary Canadian, heroes each and every one of them, rushed to Cpl. Cirillo’s aid – put pressure on his wounds and performed CPR on him until paramedics arrived instead of running for cover.
In the background is the Chateau Laurier (on the left) and the Old Train Station which is now Conference Board of Canada (on the right) and the North-bound lanes of Elgin St. between them. That is the route I take every morning to bring my high-school-student sun to his co-op placement, just a few blocks from here.
Second, this is the main entry hall in the Centre Block of the Canadian Parliament building, leading to the Library (the only original part of the Parliament buildings that was not burned down in the Great Fire. Off this hall are meeting rooms – and, co-incidentally, I have attended a wedding of a friend of mine in one of these room. (Yes, ordinary Canadians CAN book a wedding at the Parliament…though, after this, I’m not so sure….)
This is the front of the Parliament:
Macleans has a map with highligted buildings about what was locked down.
This map—last updated in November 2012—was created to illustrate the 100 most powerful buildings in Ottawa. Many of these buildings are under lockdown orders now: all federal buildings including Parliament Hill, the Elgin Street police station, the U.S. Embassy, the main branch of the Ottawa Public Library, the Rideau Centre, and the Ottawa courthouse, among others.
I hope it will paste/display OK – if not, please, follow the link.
The topmost highlighted building (purplish) is the US Embassy – and we were on lockdown in a non-Government (and thus not highlighted) building just a few minutes’ walk east of it.
Yeah, when it happens in a place that you pass several times each day, it really strikes home…
P.S. While in lockdown, I could – every now and hen – use my son’s work’s computer (but not log into anything, and so could not live-blog the event…). As such, I posted a few progress comments over at BlazingCatFur: thanks for the well-wishes and support from all the folks over there!
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 