A shooting on Monday in the heavily Jewish Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood of Montreal left three people dead, including a police officer and a member of the local Chabad community, in an attack that has shaken Jewish communities across North America even as its motive remains under investigation.
Police said the violence erupted around 11:35 a.m. after a witness reported a gun protruding from a window near a busy commercial stretch dotted with kosher markets, restaurants, and Jewish institutions. Responding officers from the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal came under fire from a suspect armed with a high-powered rifle. In the ensuing gunfight, a police officer was killed, a civilian resident was fatally struck, and a second officer was critically wounded before the lone gunman was neutralized. It was the first Montreal officer killed in the line of duty in 24 years.
The civilian victim was identified by Jewish community sources as Michoel Moshe Mizrachi, a member of the Chabad community in the neighborhood, who relatives and rescue workers said was caught in the exchange of gunfire between police and the attacker. The ZAKA rescue organization, which assisted at the scene, said its volunteers were in contact with the grieving family.
The motive remains unclear and accounts conflict. Some reports described a planned attack, with claims that the gunman had prepared a manifesto. Montreal police chief Fady Dagher called the incident a tragedy and a nightmare but said the investigation was ongoing. A Chabad spokesman, citing representatives on the ground, said that based on early information the shooting did not appear to specifically target the Jewish community, and several residents told reporters the same.
Whatever its cause, the bloodshed lands amid a documented surge in antisemitic incidents across Canada, where synagogues have been shot at and Jewish leaders have warned that the community is not being adequately protected. Côte-des-Neiges is home to historic congregations, including the oldest Jewish congregation in the country.
As the neighborhood absorbed the shock, Jewish institutions in the area went on lockdown and community organizations urged vigilance. For a community already on edge, the loss of one of its own, in the heart of its own streets, was a wound that will not soon heal.
Harlan Kilstein has been a Boca Resident since 1997. He know the ins and out of Boca
