Canadian police seek 2 in stabbings that left 10 dead, 15 injured in Saskatchewan province

REGINA, Saskatchewan — A series of stabbings in two communities in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan left 10 people dead and 15 wounded, authorities said Sunday. Police are looking for two suspects.

The stabbings took place in multiple locations on the James Smith Cree Nation and in the village of Weldon, northeast of Saskatoon, police said.

Rhonda Blackmore, the Assistant Commissioner of the RCMP Saskatchewan, said some of the victims appeared to have been targeted by the suspects but others appear to have been attacked at random. She couldn’t provide a motive.

“It is horrific what has occurred in our province today,” Blackmore said.

Assistant Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore speaks next to images of Damien Sanderson and Myles Sanderson during a news conference at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police “F” Division headquarters in Regina, Saskatchewan, on Sunday, Sept. 4, 2022. Police said the pair allegedly stabbed and killed multiple people in various locations between the James Smith Cree Nation and in the village of Weldon, northeast of Saskatoon, on Sunday morning, and are at large.  Credit: AP/Michael Bell

She said there were 13 crime scenes where either deceased or injured people were found. She urged the suspects to turn themselves in.

Blackmore said police began receiving reports before 6 a.m. of stabbings on the First Nation community. More reports of attacks quickly followed and by midday police issued a warning that a vehicle reportedly carrying the two suspects had been spotted in Regina, about 208 miles south of the communities where the stabbings occurred.

Police said the last information they had from the public was that the suspects were sighted in Saskatchewan’s capital of Regina around lunchtime. There have been so sightings since.

“If in the Regina area, take precautions & consider sheltering in place. Do not leave a secure location. DO NOT APPROACH suspicious persons. Do not pick up hitch hikers. Report suspicious persons, emergencies or info to 9-1-1. Do not disclose police locations,” the RCMP said in a message on Twitter.

Weldon resident Diane Shier said she was in her garden Sunday morning when she noticed emergency crews a couple of blocks away.

Shier said her neighbor, a man who lived with his grandson, was killed. She did not want to identify the victim out of respect for his family.

“I am very upset because I lost a good neighbor,” she said.

The search for suspects was carried out as fans descended in Regina for a sold out annual Labor Day game between the Canadian Football League’s Saskatchewan Roughriders and Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

The Regina Police Service said in a news release that with the help of Mounties, it was working on several fronts to locate and arrest the suspects and had “deployed additional resources for public safety throughout the city, including the football game at Mosaic Stadium.″

The alert first issued by Melfort, Saskatchewan RCMP about 7 a.m. was extended hours later to cover Manitoba and Alberta, as the two suspects remained at large.

Damien Sanderson, 31, was described as 5 feet, 7 inches tall and 155 pounds, and Myles Sanderson, 30, as 6-foot-1 and 200 pounds. Both have black hair and brown eyes and may be driving a black Nissan Rogue.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority said multiple patients were being treated at several sites.

“A call for additional staff was issued to respond to the influx of casualties,” authority spokeswoman Anne Linemann said in an email.

Mark Oddan, a spokesman with STARS Air Ambulance, said two helicopters were dispatched from Saskatoon and another from Regina.

He said two carried patients to the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon, while the third carried a patient to Royal University from a hospital in Melfort, a short distance southeast of Weldon.

Oddan said due to privacy laws, he could not disclose information about their ages, genders or conditions.

“The attacks in Saskatchewan today are horrific and heartbreaking. I’m thinking of those who have lost a loved one and of those who were injured,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted.

James Smith Cree Nation declared a state of emergency.

It is among the deadliest mass killings in Canadian history. The deadliest gun rampage in Canadian history happened in 2020 when a man disguised as a police officer shot people in their homes and set fires across the province of Nova Scotia, killing 22 people. A man used a van to kill 10 pedestrians in Toronto in 2019. But mass killings are less common in Canada than in the United States.