Brampton

A man was shot and killed inside a courthouse after seriously wounding a veteran cop in a terrifying gun battle that sent people running for their lives Friday.

A well-placed Toronto Sun source says the gunman walked in the main entrance of the building on Hurontario St., south of Steeles Ave. W., around 11 a.m. and rushed passed Peel Regional Police officers working at the security checkpoint after setting off the metal detector.

Const. Mike Klarenbeek immediately sprang into action, chasing after the man while shouting for him to stop, the source said. That’s when the fleeing man pulled out a firearm, turned and opened fire, hitting the officer at least once in the stomach.

The source said at least one of the other cops working at the security desk, possibly more, returned fire and killed the gunman.

Matt McMullin, 30, who was among the many citizens, lawyers and judges inside the busy courthouse, was in a courtroom for a proceeding just steps away when upwards of seven gunshots rang out.

“It was scary as hell,” the Mississauga man told the Sun after the dust settled.

McMullin, a landscaper, said he was sitting in courtroom 104 when a woman and man suddenly burst in through the doors.

“The woman was in hysterics and she yelled, ‘Oh my God he has a gun and he’s shooting,’ ” McMullin recalled of the frightening ordeal. “She was completely distraught and shaking.

“We could hear screaming coming from the hallway,” he added.

Lawyers and others ducked behind benches and the judge ran out the back door to her chambers as an officer inside quickly locked the doors.

McMullin said he “hugged the wall” beside the doors, unable to see what was happening outside in the hall and terrified the shooter might enter the courtroom guns blazing any second.

“All I could think was, ‘Oh my God, I hope he doesn’t come in here,’ ” he said, adding he was concerned the gunman may have been chasing the couple who had run into courtroom.

“It was the scariest thing I’ve ever been through in my life. You hear about this kind of stuff happening in the States, but not here.”

Just down the hall in the cafeteria, more bystanders scurried under tables, trembling in fear.

Saadia Ali Bokhar said she wasn’t sure what was happening at first.

“A girl said, ‘Shooting shooting! Gun, gun! Run, run!’ ” the lawyer recalled, still stunned after leaving the courthouse when the lockdown was lifted around 2:30 p.m.

She and others in the cafeteria ran towards a fire exit, but Bokhar said the door was blocked by construction.

She pleaded with an off-duty police officer who was among the crowd to “pick up a chair and break a window” so they could escape, but he refused to smash the glass.

“So I sat on the ledge of the window and he sat on top of me,” Bokhar said. “Then he brought a table (in front of us) to protect me.”

“I was just in such a panic,” she said. “People, some of them were passing out, some of them were holding each other.

“I thought I was going to die.”

During the lockdown, dozens of Emergency Task Force officers and K-9 units searched the building to ensure it was safe.

Paramedics whisked the critically injured officer off to the trauma centre at Sunnybrook hospital.

McMullin said there was an announcement about an hour after the shooting telling people to move upstairs.

“That’s when I saw the perpetrator’s body,” he said. “He wasn’t moving.”

As McMullin headed toward the escalator and up to the second floor, he noticed pools of blood, empty casings and plastic baskets from the security desk on the floor.”

“It was a mess,” he said. “And you could see still smell the gunpowder.”

The entire courthouse and parking lot remained cordoned off even after the lockdown was lifted.

Police held a press conference at their station across the street Friday afternoon explaining Klarenbeek was in stable condition after undergoing surgery.

“He’s a good man, a good officer ... He’s a family man,” Staff-Sgt. Dan Richardson said.

He also confirmed the gunman was dead.

But police were unable to provide any details of the incident because Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit is investigating the shootout.

The provincial police watchdog confirmed only basic details of the altercation between the gunman and police to the throng of media at the scene.

“There then was an interaction involving officers … and the man,” SIU spokesman Jasbir Brar said. “During the interaction (an) officer discharged his firearm and the man was struck and has been pronounced dead.”

She said the SIU has assigned 15 investigators and three forensic investigators to probe the incident.

But it was too early to know why the man was packing a firearm in the courthouse or to reveal any further details.

“As we collect more information we should have a better understanding of what took place,” Brar said.

The gunman’s name and age were not immediately released.

— With files from Jenny Yuen and Sam Pazzano

(Warning: Graphic content) Video of the shooting aftermath from inside the courthouse: