16 Dead in Canada's Deadliest Shooting Rampage

The death toll in Sunday's Nova Scotia shooting rampage has gone up to 17, including the gunman, the CBC and Global News report. That makes it the deadliest mass shooting in Canada's history, the AP reports. A Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer is among the dead; Constable Heidi Stevenson, a 23-year veteran of the force, was a mother of two. The 51-year-old suspect disguised himself as a police officer and shot several people in their homes and in other locations around Portapique, where he is believed to have lived part-time, starting Saturday night. He also set several homes in the area on fire.

The suspect, who wore a RCMP uniform and made his car look like a RCMP cruiser, was ultimately intercepted by officers about 55 miles away at a gas station in Enfield by late Sunday morning. Police say he may have targeted his first victims but then gone on to kill "randomly." The suspect and police exchanged gunfire at some point and the suspect ultimately died, but it's not clear how. A male RCMP officer also received non-life-threatening injuries. Mass shootings are fairly rare in Canada; prior to Sunday, the deadliest one had left 14 dead, plus the gunman, in 1989 at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique college. "This is one of the most senseless acts of violence in our province’s history,” said Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil. (More mass shootings stories.)