Students and teachers at La Cité College in Ottawa are confined. Ottawa police were called to the facility’s main campus around 10:30 a.m. this morning due to an external threat.
No one can leave the buildings of the Ottawa and Orleans campuses, in the east of the city, for the moment. A message was played over the Ottawa campus intercom around 10:50 a.m. asking people to stay inside and not let anyone in. It has since been repeated at intervals of about 20 minutes. Camille Dubois Crôteau, a student in forest environment who is in a locked room, says that students and staff can circulate in the corridors.
“We are safe, I haven’t seen or heard anything so far,” said the student. According to the newspaper The righta dozen vehicles from the Ottawa Police Service are on the scene.
La Cité College is a French-language postsecondary education institution with more than 5,000 students on its various campuses across Ontario. In Quebec, three CEGEPs have been confined in recent weeks due to external threats. “Yes, it’s becoming more and more a reality, it’s sad to find ourselves in such a situation, we’re all worried,” says Camille Dubois Crôteau.
More details will follow.
This story is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.
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