An Ontario Provincial Officer has died and two others are injured after a shooting east of Ottawa.
OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique identified the slain officer as OPP Sgt. Eric Mueller.
“It is with an extremely heavy heart that I regretfully advise that OPP Sgt. Eric Mueller has been killed in the line of duty. We anxiously await for further word on his fellow officers who are still at hospital. Our thoughts are with the officers, their families and colleagues,” he tweeted.
Provincial police were called to a home on Laval Street in the village of Bourget, around 50 kilometres east of downtown Ottawa, shortly after 2 a.m. on Thursday after someone reported hearing a gunshot.
When three officers arrived at the scene, police said they were shot at by someone inside the home.
The officers were taken to hospital in Ottawa, but one of the officers was later pronounced dead.
The extent of the injuries suffered by the officers is not known but police said they are recovering.
One person has been taken into custody.
In a tweet, Ottawa Police Service said its officers were “supporting an OPP operation in the the area of Bourget.”
Police said there was no risk to public safety.
Premier Ford, Trudeau react to OPP officer’s death
In a statement, Premier Doug Ford said his thoughts are with the family of Mueller, who he said was “senselessly killed in the line of duty.”
“Please join me in praying for his fellow officers as we await word on their condition. May God bless our heroes in uniform,” Ford said in a tweet.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau echoed those sentiments and expressed his “deepest condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues” of Sgt. Mueller, adding that his thoughts are also with the two injured officers.
It’s the latest fatal shooting to shake a police force in Ontario since last year.
In September of 2022, Toronto police Const. Andrew Hong was on his lunch break in Mississauga when he was approached by a man carrying a gun and fatally shot, in what police described as an ambush.
Then in October, Const. Devon Northrup and Const. Morgan Russell of the South Simcoe Police Service were killed after exchanging gunfire with a man while responding to a disturbance call at a home in Innisfil, Ont.
OPP Const. Grzegorz Pierzchala was shot and killed after stopping to check on a vehicle that was stuck in a ditch in Hagersville, Ont., in December 2022.
With files from John Marchesan and The Canadian Press
