Two people were killed and two others were injured, one of them critically, in shootings early Monday in four locations in Langley, British Columbia, the authorities said.
Police officers later shot the gunman, who the authorities said was responsible for all of the shootings.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said they responded to reports that shots had been fired “at several different scenes throughout the city and township of Langley,” about 30 miles southeast of downtown Vancouver.
The shootings began around midnight in the area of the Cascades Casino, where a woman was critically injured, the police said. Shootings were also reported around 3 a.m. near Creek Stone Place, a supportive housing complex, where a man was found dead, and at 5 a.m. at a site less than a mile away, where another man was killed, the police said.
The police fatally shot the gunman around 5:45 a.m. at the location of the last shooting, a highway called the Langley Bypass. The last victim, a man, was injured there, Sgt. David Lee of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team said at a news conference on Monday afternoon. Sergeant Lee did not specify what type of weapon was used.
The names of the victims and the gunman, who Sergeant Lee said was “known to police,” were not immediately released pending the notification of relatives.
The authorities said they were trying to determine a motive for the shootings.
“These people were targeted,” Sergeant Lee said, “but the nature of how they are related to the shooter, we’re still trying to determine that.”
The shootings prompted the authorities to issue emergency alerts to cellphone users in the area. Chief Superintendent Ghalib Bhayani of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said that Monday was “only the second time the public safety alert has been issued by the R.C.M.P. in British Columbia.” The first was after a report of an armed person in a pickup truck in Vanderhoof in November.
One emergency alert issued on Monday said that one of the shootings in Langley involved “transient victims,” but Sergeant Lee said that the authorities did not know whether the victims were homeless.
That alert described the gunman as a white man with dark hair who was wearing Carhartt coveralls and a T-shirt with a blue-and-green camouflage pattern.
Mayor Val van den Broek of the city of Langley said the shootings were a tragedy.
“Our hearts, thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected, families and friends of those that were involved,” she said.
