2 people dead, 3 injured following stabbing and shooting in Mount Albert

Two people are dead and three other people, including two young children, are in hospital following stabbing and subsequent shooting in East Gwillimbury.

York Regional Police said they were called to a home on Ridge Gate Crescent in Mount Albert just before 2:30 p.m. Saturday for a report of a stabbing.

Const. Laura Nicolle said when officers arrived, they found a 38-year-old woman dead at the scene. A two-year-old boy, a four-year-old boy and a 35-year-old woman were taken to hospital in serious condition.  The two children and the 35-year-old woman are all expected to survive, police said on Sunday,

The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) said when officers arrived at the home, they found a woman dead at the front door. As they made their way into the home, an altercation developed between two officers and a 37-year-old man who was fatally shot.

The SIU has now taken over that portion of the investigation and have designated two subject officers and one witness officer.

The SIU is automatically called in to investigate incidents involving police in which someone is killed, seriously injured or accused of sexual assault.

York police will continue to investigate what led up to the shooting before officers arrived.

Mount Albert update: Victims in hospital, a 2-year-old boy, a 4-year-old boy and a 35-year-old woman are all now expected to survive. Our thoughts are with them on their recovery. Thank you to the paramedics, nurses, doctors, surgeons and all staff involved in their care.

— York Regional Police (@YRP) February 7, 2021

“I don’t have any information just yet as far as what the relationship would have been or the connection,” said Nicolle on Saturday. “There’s nothing to suggest that this would have been random.”

Police added there is no further threat to the community as the suspect is the one who is deceased at the scene.

“I went forward and I heard him say ‘I need help.’ And the lady said ‘don’t go.’ She was in her truck. She said ‘don’t go, he has a knife.’ But I said he needs help so I just shouted to the man ‘help is on the way,'” a neighbour who witnessed the aftermath of the incident told CityNews.

“I felt helpless. I wanted so much to go help him because there was nobody, except this lady and she said ‘the police is on the way and the ambulance is on the way.’ Then I saw they took a little boy. He was lying beside the man that was lying there with a lot of blood.”

Local officials, meanwhile, rallied around the community where the stabbing took place.

“My thoughts and prayers are extended to the victims, family and friends, and to the community of Mount Albert,” said East Gwillimbury Mayor Virginia Hackson. “I am shocked and saddened by this tragic incident which happened earlier today.”

The local provincial legislator, Caroline Mulroney, also offered her sympathies.

“My heart breaks for the victims of the horrible tragedy in Mount Albert,” she tweeted Saturday. “My thoughts are with the victims and the first responders. Mount Albert is a strong community and will come together to support each other through the days ahead.”

Mount Albert is a community located in the Town of East Gwillimbury, which is east of Newmarket and northwest of Uxbridge, Ont.

Files from The Canadian Press were used in this report