A suspect was arrested on Wednesday evening after a deadly stabbing spree left one dead and two others injured in Alberta province’s Edmonton neighbourhood.
Edmonton police put a northern east Homesteader neighbourhood on lockdown for several hours after multiple stabbing assaults were reported.
Police believed the attack to be “random in nature” as they launched the manhunt for a “dangerous man” armed with an “edged weapon”.
This is the latest stabbing attack to shake the Canadian community days after 10 people were killed and 18 others were injured in Saskatchewan, which ranks among one of the worst mass violence attacks in Canada’s modern history.
Shortly after 6pm on Wednesday evening, Edmonton police spokeswoman Cheryl Sheppard said officers had taken the suspect, 25-year-old Clarence Lawrence, into custody.
“His appearance was described by witnesses as dishevelled and untidy,” police said.
Surveillance footage from the day showed the attacker wearing a dark hoodie, khaki pants and white shoes.
During the search for the suspect, Edmonton police ordered at least four Catholic schools, four public schools and at least one daycare in the area to be on alert as a precaution.
Residents, pedestrians and drivers were also given orders to take shelter in place and avoid routes of Hermitage Road and Henry Avenue in the Homesteader neighbourhood.
A north Edmonton resident who saw the suspect told Global News that the arrest happened right in front of her.
“I turned around and I saw the guy walking towards me about a house away from me,” she said. “All of a sudden I saw the SWATs jumped out of the vehicle and saying, ‘Get down! Get down!’ I saw him turn his head, he was down on the ground, they cuffed him. All hail the police!”
Suspect Myles Sanderson, sought by Canadian authorities in a weekend stabbing spree that killed 10 people in and around an indigenous reserve, was arrested on Wednesday but suffered unspecified “medical distress” and died a short time later at a hospital, police said.
The four-day manhunt for Sanderson, 30, who was the second suspect in the stabbing, ended with his death, police said in a late-night news conference hours after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) reported he had been taken into custody.
