A police truck near the National Assembly in Quebec City on November 1, 2020, after an attacker killed two people and injured five others (AFP / Jordan Proust)

‘Quebec Halloween attacker’ video not authentic, police say

This article is more than one year old.
Published on November 3, 2020 at 22:44
2 min read
By AFP Canada

A video showing a mysterious white figure is circulating in social media posts that claim to show the man who killed two people and injured five others in a Canadian Halloween rampage. While the footage does show parts of the Old Quebec neighborhood where the attacks occurred, police told AFP the person in the clip is not the attacker.

“Quebec City stabbing. Suspect dressed as Mediaeval Samurai with Katana. 2 dead, 5 injured. 1 Nov 20,” reads the title on a YouTube video that has garnered more than 150,000 views since it was published on November 1.

Extracts of the footage were also shared on Facebook and Instagram following the attack by a sword-wielding suspect dressed in medieval clothing that left two people dead and five wounded on Halloween night.

Screenshot of the YouTube video, taken on November 3, 2020

In the video, a person with what looks like long black hair and dressed in a white sheet can be seen wandering the city. One segment of the footage features the French caption “Someone filmed him 1 hour before because they thought he was weird.”

The figure is seen carrying what appears to be a metallic object, and at one point a female voice heard commenting on the video asks in French, “Wait, who just screamed?”

Though the video does take place in parts of the touristic distric in the Old City of Quebec, shown on Google Street View here, here and here, the person depicted “is not the attacker,” a spokesman for the Quebec City Police Department told AFP by phone.

“The individual that we arrested was dressed in black. There was no white sheet,” he said.

“The place where he left his vehicle and everything started is very well covered by CCTV cameras. We are able to follow him as soon as he steps inside the (Old City’s) walls,” he added.

This photo confirms he was not wearing a white costume at the time of his arrest.

Police officers detain a suspect near the National Assembly in Quebec City on November 1, 2020, after two people were killed and five wounded by a sword-wielding suspect dressed in medieval clothing (AFP / Steve Jolicoeur)

Local French-language media also debunked the video. The Journal de Quebec reported that the person in white was questioned then released by the police on the night of the Halloween attack, and that the metallic object he was carrying was not a sword.

Contacted by AFP, Quebec police would not give further details pending investigation into the attack.

The attacks occurred on October 31, 2020 in multiple locations near the Chateau Frontenac Hotel and the National Assembly, the Quebec provincial parliament.

The suspect, who was arrested early Sunday after an hours-long street-by-street manhunt, was identified by local media as Carl Girouard, a man with a history of mental health issues from a Montreal suburb who was “not associated with a terrorist group,” police said.

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