Montreal Police Officer Killed in Hotel Shooting, First Line-of-Duty Death in 24 Years

A Montreal police officer and a civilian were killed in a shooting that erupted at a downtown hotel on Monday morning, an attack that also wounded another officer and a second civilian before police shot and killed the gunman. It was the first time in 24 years that a Montreal officer had been killed in the line of duty.

The gunfire broke out in the city's Cote-des-Neiges neighborhood after reports of someone firing from a hotel window. Emergency services were called around 11:35 a.m. about a person sticking a gun out of a window at the Hilton hotel, and officers who responded came under fire as the situation rapidly escalated into a deadly confrontation.

The fallen officer was identified as Constable Mohamed Lamine Benredouane, 34, who had served with the Montreal police since 2021. His death stunned a force that had not lost an officer in the line of duty in more than two decades, and colleagues gathered at the scene and at hospitals as word of the killing spread through the department.

Two other people, including a police officer, were wounded in the exchange, and a civilian also died, though authorities said it was not immediately clear who fired the shot that killed the bystander. The shooter was killed at the scene. Investigators worked through the afternoon to reconstruct the sequence of events and to determine how the gunman had positioned himself inside the hotel.

Police consulted multiple agencies, including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, before concluding that the shooting was not a terrorist attack. The motive remained under investigation, and officials cautioned that key questions — including how the gunman obtained his weapon and why he opened fire — were still unanswered.

Mass shootings remain comparatively rare in Canada, where firearms laws are stricter than in the neighboring United States, and the killing of a police officer carries particular weight. City and provincial leaders offered condolences to Benredouane's family and to the force, as the neighborhood around the hotel remained cordoned off while the investigation continued into the evening.