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Updated: Langley MP caught up in Ottawa lockdown

Mark Warawa was in Conservative party caucus meeting when shooting started
aJohn Gordon 2010-05-24
Markm warawa at the May Day Parade 2010
Langley MP Mark Warawa

After a gunman opened fire on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday morning, Langley MP Mark Warawa contacted his office to let his staff know that he is safe.

"He's spoken with us," a staffer in Warawa's Ottawa office told The Times.

The staffer said Warawa was attending a Conservative party caucus meeting when a lockdown was ordered.

Social media images showed politicians barricading doors with chairs and tables.

The Langley MP's office is located in a building across the street from the caucus meeting.

The building was also locked down, and staffers were told by police to stay away from windows.

Reports from the scene said a reserve soldier from Hamilton standing guard at the National War Memorial in Ottawa was shot by a man with a rifle.

The soldier was rushed to hospital, where he died.

Eyewitnesses said the attack began around 10 a.m. Ottawa time, when a short man with long black hair fired several shots at the soldier at close range.

The attacker then headed to Parliament Hill's Centre Block, where the various political parties were all holding caucus meetings.

One eyewitness said he saw a man running with a double-barrelled shotgun, wearing a scarf and blue jeans, who hopped over the stone fence that surrounds Parliament Hill, forced someone out of a car, and drove to the front doors of Parliament.

Several witnesses reported hearing a number of gunshots inside.

The gunman was reportedly shot dead by Parliament’s sergeant-at-arms.

NDP MP Craig Scott posted a Twitter message that said "MPs and Hill staff owe their safety, even lives, to Sergeant at Arms Kevin Vickers who shot attacker just outside the MPs' caucus rooms."

There were reports there may have been more than one gunman.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, NDP leader Thomas Mulcair and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau were all removed from the scene by police and taken to undisclosed safe locations, reports said.

Heavily armed soldiers could be seen on the streets of Ottawa.

In B.C., security was tightened at the provincial legislature in Victoria, with extra guards on duty, but no lockdown.

Transit Police in Metro Vancouver announced they would implement "extra security precautions to maintain the safety of transit."

The Ottawa shooting of a Canadian Armed Forces member came the same week as a hit-and-run attack that killed one soldier and injured another in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, on Monday.

The man driving the car, Martin Rouleau-Couture, a self-professed convert to radical Islam, was shot and killed by police after a car chase.