An Ontario Provincial Police car is seen in this file photo.MIKE CASSESE/Reuters
Two men are dead and a firefighter has been sent to hospital with serious injuries following a series of incidents including a shooting in the Ontario town of Tamworth.
The Ontario Provincial Police said the dead are both adult males. The province's Special Investigations Unit has been called in to investigate. Its mandate is to examine all cases involving police that result in serious injury or death.
District fire chief Richard Easterbrook confirmed that the injured male is a local firefighter. He said the man was hurt and is in hospital but that his injuries are not life threatening. A woman was also injured. A local man who asked not to be named said he was told that the firefighter had been shot in the arm and that the woman had sustained an injury to her leg during an attempted carjacking. The OPP would not confirm any of the specifics of the case.
The police did say there are six separate crime scenes involved in this investigation. It's not known what led up to the violence, which began around 5 p.m. Wednesday. The names of the victims have not yet been released.
Local TV station CKWS said OPP officers were stationed at the local post office, where evidence markers had been placed around cartridge casings. Officers were also monitoring the local fire station, two homes and two spots along a county road, according to CKWS.
Tamworth is a town of roughly 500 people in Eastern Ontario, north of Napanee.
Joe Friesen