A man was arrested after a vehicle drove into a Filipino community festival on Saturday in British Columbia, in a “mass casualty incident,” the police said.
A driver plowed into a group of partygoers attending a Filipino street festival on Saturday evening in Vancouver, British Columbia, killing at least nine people, according to the local authorities.
Vancouver police said earlier that they were investigating a “mass casualty incident” at a neighborhood block party. The police said they had taken “a lone suspect” into custody at the scene: the driver, a 30-year-old Vancouver man.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said that another 20 people had been injured in what he described as a “car-ramming attack.”
Investigators had ruled out terrorism as a motive, Vancouver police said in an email, but they did not offer further details. Mr. Carney said that federal national security officials “do not believe that there is any active threat to Canadians.”
Photographs published by news agencies showed what appeared to be a black SUV with significant damage to the front of the vehicle, and its airbags deployed.
“At approximately 8:14 p.m. on April 26, a man drove into a large crowd of people attending the Lapu Lapu Day Festival near East 43rd Avenue and Fraser Street,” the Vancouver police said in a post on social media. The annual event celebrates Datu Lapu Lapu, a national hero in the Philippines.
