OTTAWA (Reuters) -A 38-year-old man was charged with two counts of dangerous driving causing death after he ran a pickup truck into pedestrians in a small town in Canada’s province of Quebec, killing a pair of elderly men, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
Additional charges against the suspect, identified as Steeve Gagnon, will be filed later “in light of the analysis of all the elements collected as part of the ongoing police investigation,” prosecutors said in a statement.
Nine other people were injured in Monday’s incident. Gagnon, who was brought into court wearing handcuffs, is next due to appear before a judge on April 5. If convicted, Gagnon could be sentenced to life in prison.
Authorities said Gagnon deliberately drove the vehicle into pedestrians walking along a road in the town of Amqui, about 650 km (400 miles) northeast of Montreal. Police previously had said the vehicle used in the incident was a van, but on Tuesday clarified that it was a pickup truck.
“It’s too early to say anything about what kind of motive Mr. Gagnon might have had in doing what he did,” Quebec prosecutor Simon Blanchette told reporters, adding that the suspect had a criminal record from several years earlier but not a “heavy” record.
Asked whether Gagnon was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the incident, Blanchette said that preliminary information indicates he was not in an “altered state.”
Police spokesperson Claude Doiron said earlier that Gagnon was cooperating in the investigation.
“What the probe shows is the actions were premeditated. (It) also shows that the people were targeted at random,” Doiron told reporters in televised remarks.
The incident occurred a month after a bus driver was charged with murder after ramming his vehicle into a daycare center in a Montreal suburb, killing two children.
“We see these types of events are happening more and more around the world, it’s not unique to us,” Quebec Premier Francois Legault told reporters.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren and Ismail Shakil; Editing by Will Dunham)