Cpl. Bert Paquet of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police provides the latest details of a shooting at the U.S.-Canadian border between Surrey, B.C. and Blaine, Wash.
By NBC News staff
Updated at 9:49 p.m. ET: A Canadian border agent has been shot and her assailant killed at the main border crossing from Washington state to Canada, according to law enforcement officials. The crossing was closed to traffic on Tuesday afternoon.
The Canadian Border Services Agency guard, who was shot in the neck area, was airlifted around 2:30 p.m. to a Vancouver-area hospital, The Province newspaper reported, citing emergency services. She was still breathing after the shooting, officials said Tuesday afternoon.
The shooter shot himself in the head after the incident, according to The Province. He has yet to be identified by police.
The Washington State Department of Transportation announced that all northbound lanes of Interstate 5, which leads to the Peace Arch crossing, were closed to traffic because of police activity. Southbound lanes from Canada into the United States were also closed. Drivers were being diverted to other border crossings.
The suspect in the shooting, the Province reported, was driving a white Ford van with Washington state license plates. It is unclear whether the van belonged to him.
Elizabeth Southam told the Global News that she was returning from Halloween shopping and was about three cars behind the border booth when she heard two loud gunshots.
She spoke with the Global News by phone as she was stuck at the border. She said the shooter's van remained at the scene.
"Everybody started freaking out," she said. "Border guards ran out of the little booths here and locked everything up. Everyone just went crazy."
She saw border guards pull their service weapons on the van.
"I didn't actually see the guns go off but they were all screaming and yelling at the guy and then he shot himself," Southam told the News.
Dave Noble, who commutes from Washington state to White Rock in Canada several times a week, spoke with reporters at the scene about what he saw and heard.
"There were shots fired in quick succession, and then I heard some screams," Noble said, according to the Vancouver Sun.
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