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MPs stunned by gunshots, told to get on the floor

After a harrowing day of being whisked off Parliament Hill and into lockdown at a nearby hotel, Victoria MP Murray Rankin walked home through eerily empty Ottawa streets to find a warning at his door. “Parliament Hill came under attack today...

After a harrowing day of being whisked off Parliament Hill and into lockdown at a nearby hotel, Victoria MP Murray Rankin walked home through eerily empty Ottawa streets to find a warning at his door.

“Parliament Hill came under attack today...” read the letter from the apartment’s manager. “Ottawa residents are reportedly being warned a shooter or shooters could be on the roof of a building and to stay off the street and away from windows.”

“It is kind of scary and I don’t know what happens Thursday,” Rankin said.

Rankin and his NDP caucus colleagues were stunned Wednesday after hearing gunshots on Parliament Hill and seeing the chaos that followed.

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair had just given a speech to the NDP caucus when the series of ear-shattering gunshots rang out.

“I heard 10 gunshots at least and huddled with colleagues under a desk,” Rankin said. “It sounded like desks collapsing.”

At the sound of the shots, “the blood just drained” from Mulcair’s face, Rankin said. “There’s just one word to describe it — shock.”

Ottawa police said they were flooded with 911 calls about a shooting at 9:52 a.m. Eastern — a little over 35 minutes after the parties went into caucus meetings.

Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen noted that had the shooting begun slightly later, the halls would have been filled with parliamentarians, staff, journalists and more.

“This was terrible and it could have been even worse,” Cullen said.

Immediately, a security guard told the NDP MPs to get down on the floor and under their desks.

Cullen, who was still in lockdown in Parliament Hill’s East Block just before 5 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, said he was at the caucus room’s back door, about to slip into the corridor, when he heard what sounded like garbage can lids banging together.

“I went to reach for the back door knob as a security guard entered,” Cullen said. “The look on his face told me that was not a good direction to go.

“The doors were barricaded with tables.”

When it was deemed safe, the NDP MPs were led single file out of Parliament Hill through the East Block, Rankin said.

Rankin was able to go across the street to the Fairmont Chateau Laurier hotel, which was also under lockdown as the police hunt for potential additional suspects expanded.

Rankin described the scene of police, ambulances and soldiers in the streets as one of chaos.

Police advised people in the vicinity of Parliament Hill throughout the day that they were in a danger zone and should not be outside or at their windows.

Green party Leader Elizabeth May said she had been in Centre Block from 7 a.m. until a bit after 9 a.m., but was in the nearby Confederation Building at the time of the shooting. She, too, was under lockdown Wednesday.

Later, in a statement, the Saanich-Gulf Islands MP said the “senseless, horrifying attack” had shaken everyone who works in Parliament, but cautioned against overreacting to Wednesday’s events: “Today is not a day that ‘changes everything.’ It is a day of tragedy. We must ensure we keep our responses proportionate to whatever threat remains.

“We stand together, strengthened in our resolve to uphold the values of peace and democracy upon which our country was founded.”

Esquimalt-Juan De Fuca NDP MP Randall Garrison, the NDP’s public-safety critic, did not want to comment Wednesday until more was known. “My thoughts are with those who died or were wounded keeping us safe,” he tweeted.

charnett@timescolonist.com