Vehicles, heavy and light, have sadly been used in numerous attacks in recent years. Referred to as “ram-vehicles”, the tolls in terms of injuries and deaths from these tragic events are often counted in the plural. Reminder of some of these dramas.
Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec
PHOTO IVANOH DEMERS, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
After a car chase, Martin Couture-Rouleau ran screaming towards the police, two knives in hand. Officers shot him with 11 bullets.
On October 20, 2014, a radicalized individual, Martin Couture-Rouleau, hit two members of the Canadian Armed Forces in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, on the South Shore of Montreal, after calling 9-1-1 to demand that Canada withdraws from the Coalition against the Islamic State. After a car chase, he ran screaming towards the police, two knives in his hand. Officers shot him with 11 bullets. The attack is considered a terrorist operation motivated by ideological beliefs. Couture-Rouleau acted alone.
Nice, France
On July 14, 2016 in Nice, France, a truck rushes into the compact crowd gathered on the Promenade des Anglais for the Bastille Day parade. The tragedy, quickly classified as a terrorist act and claimed by the armed group Islamic State, caused the death of 86 people and injured more than 450. The perpetrator of the attack, a Tunisian residing in France, was shot dead by the police. It has since been one of the worst deadliest attacks in France since the Second World War.
London, UK
On March 22, 2017, a 52-year-old Briton converted to Islam and known to the police mowed down several pedestrians on the pavement of Westminster Bridge, in the heart of London, before stabbing a policeman to death in front of the British Parliament. The attack killed five people, including four on the bridge. The assailant was then shot and killed by a police officer.
Charlottesville, Virginia
On August 12, 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia in the United States, hundreds of far-right members demonstrate under the banner of the “Unite the Right” movement to protest against the municipality’s plan to unbolt a statue of the slave-holding Confederate general. Robert E. Lee. At the end of this rally, clashes broke out between white supremacists and counter-demonstrators. A neo-Nazi sympathizer then drives into a crowd of anti-racism protesters, killing a 32-year-old young woman, Heather Heyer, and injuring 19 people.
Toronto, Canada
PHOTO AARON VINCENT ELKAIM, THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
The Toronto attacker was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of release for 25 years.
On April 23, 2018 in Toronto, Alek Minassian uses his vehicle, a rental van, to drive into a crowd of pedestrians gathered on a sidewalk in the downtown core of the Canadian metropolis. At the time, the attack left 10 dead and more than 16 injured. Another woman will die three years later from injuries sustained that day. Arrested shortly after, Minassian was finally sentenced last summer to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years for the attack, considered the deadliest vehicle-ramming attack in the country’s history. .