A 19-year-old man was shot and killed by police in the northern community of Akulivik after a stabbing spree that left three people dead and two others injured. Illutak Anautak, 19, has been identified by local officials as a man shot dead by police.
Relatives said there were no outward, explicit signs of distress that could have explained why Illutak Anautak would be involved in a series of stabbing attacks Saturday morning that left three of his relatives dead before he was fatally shot by police.
But there had been no shortage of tragic moments in the short life of the 19-year-old resident of the small village of Akulivik, on the eastern shores of Hudson Bay in northern Quebec, a reflection of the struggles faced by young Inuit in their communities.
Mr. Anautak had an older brother who died of suicide, his mother had been murdered by her husband, and an uncle, who was among Saturday's victims, had been rescued from a suicide attempt more than a decade ago, said a friend, David Qaqutuk, a manager with the regional landholding corporation.
Opinion: Indigenous suicide is no longer a mystery. So why the continued political apathy?
"He never seemed angry. I never noticed him being mentally ill. I would always give him a thumbs up each time I saw him," Mr. Qaqutuk recalled.
A cousin, Steven Alayco, also said Mr. Anautak, who worked at the local youth centre, had never shown signs of distress. "He was a cool guy."
According to the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes, which investigates cases where someone is killed by police, the tragic events in the village of 633 people started early Saturday.
The Bureau was told that a 19-year-old man broke into three houses and stabbed five people, killing three of them, including a child.
He was confronted by officers as he tried to enter a fourth residence and was shot, fell down, then was shot again when he moved toward the officers, the Bureau was told.
Officials didn't release the names of the man or the victims but local residents said that the suspect was Mr. Anautak and that the relatives who were killed were his uncle Lucassie Anautak, Eli Qinuajuak, who was the husband of his aunt Eva Anautak, and a pre-teen cousin, Patulik Anautak.
Eva Anautak and a young girl were wounded. They were in critical condition and were flown to hospital in Montreal, said Willia Nappatuk, the municipal manager.
Mr. Nappatuk confirmed reports by the CBC and La Presse that before the stabbings began, Mr. Anautak had written on his Facebook account that "I just don't care if I killed someone else."
Simionie Aliqu, whose wife Meeko witnessed the shooting, said she described to him how a knife-wielding Mr. Anautak had been confronted outside a home by Kativik Regional police officers.
Both the officers and Ms. Aliqu urged him to drop his knife, her husband said, adding that Mr. Anautak didn't heed their calls but pointed the knife at his neck, then tried to enter a home.
Mr. Aliqu said the officers fired several times at Mr. Anautak while he was outside, then once more when he got in the home.
"We are shocked and deeply saddened by the incomprehensible tragedy in this beautiful community. Things like this are not supposed to happen in our society," the Makivik Corporation, the legal representative of the Quebec Inuit, said in a statement.
"They want me to go [to the] funeral but they might send me to Montreal for being suicidal," Mr. Anautak's half brother, Moses Chamberland Inukpuk, wrote on his Facebook page.
Mr. Qaqutuk said he often sees young Inuit talk about suicide on social media. He recalled how, more than 10 years ago, he had rescued one of the stabbing victims, Mr. Qinuajuak, who had tried to kill himself.
He said he was at the school gym when he saw Mr. Qinuajuak, hanging from a rope tied to the bars of the gym stairs. Others tried to save him but "they were trying to lift him by his legs which had no strength since by then he was unconscious. I started running towards the stairs and took him by his shoulders."
Mr. Qaqutuk said suicide was a recurring feature of local life and said Mr. Anautak might have been among dozens of young people who once saw a young man kill himself with a .20-gauge shotgun next to a playground a few years ago after he was confronted by police following an argument with his girlfriend.
Poor job prospects, inadequate housing and substance abuse have long contributed to the social problems in Nunavik, the homeland of Quebec's Inuit.
A 2009 paper by the Nunavik Regional Board of Health warns, for example, that overcrowding and lack of privacy contribute to family conflicts and may be related to high suicide and violence rates.
The mortality rate from suicide and self-inflicted injuries is 11.5 per 10,000 people in Nunavik, 10 times higher than that for Quebec, according to 2015 figures from the Nunivaat statistics program.
Tu Thanh Ha