Four injured in shooting near Laval college, school put in lockdown Friday night

A police cruiser is parked outside College Montmorency after three people were injured in a shooting on Friday, Nov. 11, 2022. (Source: Noovo Info)

Four people were injured and sent to hospital after a shooting near the Collège Montmorency in Laval, police say.

Police received a 911 call around 5:22 p.m. Friday and responded to the school on Avenir Boulevard.

The shooting took place in a green space near the college, according to Laval Police spokesperson Geneviève Major. Police set up a perimeter around the school which called a lockdown as officers searched for at least one suspect.

The injuries were not considered to be life-threatening.

Sources told CTV staff and students were first notified of the shooter by a witness who screamed through the halls for people to take cover. 

Students were moved into safe spaces. Their parents are waiting in uncertainty for updates as many rushed to the scene. Traffic was backed up in both directions. The school remained in lockdown several hours later.

Laval police survey the halls of College Montmorency in Laval, Que. after a shooting was reported nearby. The school was put in lockdown as parent waited anxiously outside.

"They are safe from what I gather from her messages," wrote one mother in a message to CTV Montreal. Her daughter is inside the school. "There was panic inside."

Quebec Francois Legault took to social media Friday to call the shooting "troubling."

"My thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones," he wrote. "We will relentlessly fight gun violence on our streets to keep Qc a safe place."

The incident comes on the same day as another major police operation at a college south of Montreal, which resulted in the arrest of a 19-year-old man.