Shooting threat prompts lockdown

The Kateri Memorial Hospital Centre (KMHC) abruptly went into lockdown on Tuesday after a man called the front desk saying he was prepared to come in and shoot.

The call came into the hospital’s inpatient department at around 5:40 p.m. that evening. 

“What was stated was that they’re going to come here and shoot the hospital and everyone,” said Valerie Diabo, the hospital’s executive director.

The Kahnawake Peacekeepers were called immediately after, with staff rushing to lock each entrance to the building in the meantime, moving residents away from all the windows and shutting the blinds. 

Numerous Peacekeepers arrived right after, setting up a security perimeter around the hospital. 

“The PKs were situated at both entrances, and they stayed there all night. One was patrolling around the building to make sure that the area was safe, so our staff were very happy about that and felt secure,” said Diabo, who stayed at the hospital until 1 a.m. Wednesday morning, just to return again a few hours later at 5 a.m.

It’s still not known what could have motivated the caller to make the threat. 

“It’s an English-speaking male caller. That’s really all we know right now,” said Kyle Zachary, spokesperson for the Peacekeepers. 

There was also no number visible on the caller ID of the phone being staffed that evening by the hospital’s ward clerk, he said.

“That makes it a little more difficult to trace,” Zachary said. “We’d have to subpoena phone records, but it can be done.”

Their investigation is ongoing, and more information should be public soon, he said, once charges are laid against a suspect.

“Every call we get, we take it seriously, but we take calls of this nature especially seriously,” Zachary said. “We have the same response, regardless of where the threat is.”

The hospital remained locked down for roughly an hour Tuesday before reopening to the public. 

Between then and Thursday morning, only limited services were available, with security guards screening each person entering the building, Diabo said, including visitors, who were still permitted to enter. 

Scheduled appointments with doctors and nurses were postponed or happened over the phone instead. The hospital’s clinic closed, and blood tests, X-ray exams, and other services were also rescheduled. 

“Our staff did an excellent job to make sure that all our residents were safe,” Diabo said. “They’ve been taking it quite well. I mean, last night was a bit of excitement,” she said Wednesday morning, “but our staff were excellent in terms of giving them information or distracting them.”

Support has been made available to staff through the hospital’s employee assistance program, Diabo said. Workers at Kahnawake Shakotiia’takehnhas Community Services (KSCS) were also available over the week if any of them needed counselling.

As of Wednesday morning, Kahentiióhstha’ (Roberta) Duhaime had heard word of the lockdown, but said she still had no idea what had prompted it. She visits her mother Mary Paul there nearly every day. 

“It’s frightening,” she told The Eastern Door, saying at first, she had fears someone might have targeted the long-term care department.

“Why would somebody target a hospital?” she said. “It seems to me when I was growing up, nothing like this ever happened.”

She visited her mother there Wednesday at her usual time. She said that though her mother wasn’t told what had happened, she certainly had an inkling something was off. 

“She said ‘Well, I didn’t sleep much last night,’ I said, ‘What do you mean, why?’ She said, ‘I think there was a fire.’ She said all the alarms were on,’” Duhaime said. “She knew something was going on, she said there were people walking by the door more than normally.”

The threat to the KMHC this week follows a similar one roughly two months ago at the Kahnawake Survival School (KSS), when a student threatened to shoot up the high school. The school went into lockdown then, with students ordered to hide in their classrooms as Peacekeepers arrived for a thorough search of the premises.  

In June of 2022, local schools under the Kahnawake Education Center (KEC) shuttered over the course of a Friday and Monday, following a threat to shoot that been made then to Kateri School. Peacekeepers later learned the call to the school had come from a 10-year-old girl from San Antonio, Texas, after getting in contact with authorities in the state.

This is the first time the hospital has ever received a firearm-related threat, Diabo said. A few years ago, however, a bomb threat came in, she said, prompting an immediate evacuation of the building. 

As of Thursday morning, the Peacekeepers had no updates to share regarding their investigation into the incident this week at the hospital. 

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