A resident of an residence complicated in Lethbridge, Alta., says she was shocked by a heavy police presence earlier this week after investigators searched a unit linked to the suspect in Monday’s lethal capturing in Montreal.
The search got here a day after a person who lived within the complicated was linked to the noon shooting that left a Montreal police officer and a bystander dead.
Lethbridge police searched a unit on LeMoyne Crescent in West Lethbridge for hours Tuesday as a part of the investigation.
Neighbour Anika Medema mentioned she left residence earlier than officers arrived and returned to seek out a number of police autos.
“There have been police in all places, like a bomb squad,” she informed International Information on Thursday.
Medema mentioned she didn’t know the accused resident, recognized as 25-year-old Seth Scott Hatfield, who was a pupil on the College of Lethbridge.
The suspect in a capturing in Montreal’s Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood Monday that claimed the lives of a police officer and civilian has been recognized as a 25-year-old man from Lethbridge, Alta.
International Information
Lethbridge Police conduct a search of a house alongside Lemoyne Crescent, in Lethbridge, Alta., on Tuesday, June 23, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Matthew Bruce.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Matthew Bruce
“He wasn’t very approachable. Sort of stored to himself actually,” Medema mentioned.
As extra particulars in regards to the case emerge, the girl mentioned it’s unsettling to have lived so near the suspect.
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“Strolling right here alone generally, it’s sort of scary, . Trigger if he was nonetheless right here, what might have occurred?” she mentioned.
She mentioned the investigation is a reminder that folks usually know little about these residing close by.
“You don’t actually know your neighbour that properly, so something might be taking place,” she mentioned.
Police cleared the complicated late Tuesday night time, and the autos and warning tape have since been eliminated.
Lethbridge police have launched few particulars in regards to the search, saying solely that officers had been conducting a high-risk search and helping Quebec authorities with the investigation.
This comes as a specialised nationwide safety unit throughout the RCMP introduced Thursday that it opened an investigation into ideologically motivated violent extremism.
The RCMP mentioned branches of its Built-in Nationwide Safety Enforcement Staff in Japanese Canada and within the northwest area are working collectively on a case that’s separate from the homicide investigation led by Quebec provincial police.
These RCMP enforcement groups goal terrorist teams or individuals who threaten nationwide safety.
Whereas neither the RCMP nor Quebec’s provincial police have publicly launched particulars in regards to the suspected motive behind Monday’s capturing, International Information has reviewed a manifesto written by the alleged gunman that expresses hatred towards girls and requires violence in opposition to police and high-powered figures like bankers, CEOs, and people working within the pornography business.
The alleged gunman exchanged gunfire with police outdoors a lodge within the metropolis’s Côte-des-Neiges district, throughout from the Montreal workplaces for Aylo, proprietor of grownup leisure manufacturers together with Pornhub.
Provincial police are main the prison investigation into the capturing. The province’s unbiased police watchdog is analyzing the officers’ intervention, as required every time somebody dies throughout a police operation.
A big group of individuals gathered in Côte-des-Neiges on Thursday night to protest in opposition to so-called incel ideology.
Incel stands for “involuntary celibate,” a time period for an web subculture dominated largely by males who blame girls and social constructions for his or her lack of sexual or romantic relationships.
Montreal capturing suspect manifesto aligns with incel motion, specialists say
The protest started on the memorial for the 1989 Polytechnique bloodbath throughout which a gunman motivated by a hatred for feminism killed 14 girls at an engineering college in Montreal.
The demonstration was meant to spark a broader dialog about misogyny, violence in opposition to girls and the web radicalization of some younger males.
Organizers mentioned they selected to assemble on the Polytechnique memorial as a result of they imagine Monday’s capturing serves as a reminder that violence fuelled by hatred of girls stays a risk.
“Monday’s capturing might have been one other Polytechnique,” mentioned activist Céleste Trianon. “It was pure luck that no girls had been killed.”
–with information from The Canadian Press
