1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites
PoliticsCanada

Canada stabbings: Suspect not found after reported sighting

September 7, 2022

Police surrounded a home in search of the fugitive suspect in the Saskatchewan mass stabbings, but that appears to have been a false alarm and the manhunt continues.

https://p.dw.com/p/4GUpK
Ruby Works, a friend of Wes Petterson, speaks to a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer outside Petterson's home in Weldon, Saskatchewan, Canada, on September 6, 2022. Petterson has been identified as one of the stabbing victims.
Residents at the Indigenous reserve are shocked by the violence in their community, assisting officials the best they canImage: Lars Hagberg/AFP/Getty Images

Canadian police on Tuesday continued looking for one of two brothers suspected of stabbing 10 people in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Police also warned residents over the possible sighting of suspect Myles S. around the James Smith Cree First Nation reserve and asked them to stay home.

Authorities, who then descended with their guns and surrounded a home at the Indigenous reserve, later said they might have responded to a false alarm, The Associated Press reported.

A massive manhunt, involving hundreds of police officers, continues for Myles S. for the third day since the mass stabbings on the James Smith Cree First Nation reserve and a nearby town last Sunday.

Police say there's a possibility that Myles S. is injured.

What police know about the suspects

Canadian police identified the suspects, Damien S. and Myles S., soon after they received a call Sunday morning about the stabbings.

Damien S. was found dead Monday in a "heavily grassed area" near the stabbing sites. Police are investigating whether Myles S. killed his brother.

Though the motive behind the stabbing is not clear, the chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations suggested the stabbings could be drug-related.

What happened in the attacks?

Police were called to the James Smith Cree Nation over a stabbing Sunday at 5:40 am and soon heard about several others.

The killing spree left ten dead and 18 injured, with victims found at 13 different locations on the sparsely populated reserve and nearby Weldon town.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the attacks "shocking and heartbreaking." 

The elected leaders of the three communities that make up the James Smith Cree Nation declared a local state of emergency.

Editor's note: Deutsche Welle follows the German press code, which stresses the importance of protecting the privacy of suspected criminals or victims and obliges us to refrain from revealing full names in such cases. 

rm/rt (Reuters, AFP, AP)