A series of shootings in the Canadian town of Langley, 45 kilometers southeast of Vancouver, in the province of British Columbia, has caused “several victims”, according to the Royal Mounted Police. The presence of a homicide squad at the scene, reported by the public network CBC News, indicates that there is at least one dead. All of them were homeless people; police believe the attack was planned.

The first alert, issued at 6:15 a.m. local time (3:15 p.m. Spanish peninsular time) spoke of “multiple shootings” in the Langley region: one in a shopping center, another in a casino and the third in a pawnshop. A police spokesman has indicated that there is a detainee, whom he believes responsible for the events, and that, although he considers that he has acted alone, he is still trying to rule out that he is the only one.

Although far from the level of its neighbor the United States, Canada has experienced an increase in crimes with firearms for years. According to the Canadian Government, since 2009 the number of crimes related to firearms has grown by 81%. And while mass shooting incidents are rare, they still happen, like the one in 2020 in the province of Nova Scotia that killed 23 people. The growing concern about the problem has led the Canadian federal government to announce last May a much stricter regulation of the sale of firearms, which represents an almost total moratorium.

The Vancouver metropolitan area has had a relatively large homeless population for decades, caused largely by high housing prices. Officially, at last count, there are 2,095 homeless people in the Canadian city alone.

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