A police officer is in stable condition after a shooting at the Brampton courthouse this morning in which the shooter was killed.

The officer injured is Mike Klarenbeek, 53, a Peel Regional Police constable with nearly 30 years on the force, Staff Sgt. Dan Richardson told the media after 2 p.m. Klarenbeek had been working at the court house for the past five years.

“He’s a good cop . . . He’s a family man,” Richardson said.

A police officer at the courthouse told the Star that Klarenbeek — now at Sunnybrook hospital — wasn’t wearing his bulletproof vest, but that he was expected to survive.

Earlier this morning, the officer’s father, Peter Klarenbeek said he had not heard whether his son, who is in his mid-50s and married with two children, had been injured.

“We haven’t heard anything,” Klarenbeek said. “I wouldn’t be surprised. He doesn’t stand back from anything.”

The shooter was killed by a Peel officer at 11 a.m., according to the Special Investigations Unit, which probes all incidents involving the police and civilians that result in serious injury or death.

After the police officer was shot, “there was an interaction involving officers with the (Peel Regional Police Service) and the man. During the interaction a PRPS officer discharged his firearm and the man was struck and has been pronounced dead,” the SIU said in a statement. Peel police said at a news conference Friday afternoon the suspect was from Brampton.

The SIU has assigned 18 investigators to handle the case.

Anthony Chandra said he was in the front foyer when a man tried to come through the security entrance designated for lawyers and other staff.

He said one police officer asked the man: “Sir, can you come here?”

“And he just started shooting,” said Chandra “I was scared. I’m still shaking.”

He added: “All I heard was a couple of shots and then two guys were lying on the floor.”

The officer appeared to still be conscious and had his hand on his chest, the man said.

Another man, Keron Cadore, 21, said he was on his way to the washroom on the main floor when he heard six or seven shots.

A man in a black trench coat, who appeared to be well dressed, tried to get into the courthouse through the lawyer’s entrance, Cadore said.

Then he took out a gun and started shooting.

The shooter was then shot and dropped to the floor.

“Basically he was dead,” Cadore said.

Criminal defence lawyer Gary Batasar said he was on his way to the second floor from the main floor escalator when he heard five shots.

“Everybody went wild in the courthouse,” Batasar said, adding everyone scrambled to exit the courthouse or get inside nearby rooms.

Batasar, who works primarily in Brampton, said Klarenbeek is a respected and “easy going” court officer.

“Really good guy. I’ve known him for a long time,” Batasar said, adding he is “always very cordial with all the staff and even with the accused coming in.”

A bystander video that appears to show events inside the courthouse immediately after the shooting depicts several police officers standing over and leaning on what looks to be a man in a light-coloured shirt. The man is lying face down on the floor just inside the court’s front entrance. Several people nearby are crouched in doorways or lying flat on the floor.

Peel EMS confirmed they took one patient to hospital from the courthouse. They described his condition as critical.

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A source told the Star that the officer has been shot in the stomach.

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Peel police confirmed one of their officers was involved. A source told the Star the officer was at the A. Grenville and William Davis Courthouse, but is not one of the court officers regularly stationed at the Hurontario St. building.

After lawyers, judges and people attending the courthouse were held in lockdown for two hours, police have started to let them out of the rooms they were sequestered in.

Shortly after noon, Peel police made an announcement over the courthouse’s intercom system, telling all people in the building to stay where they are and not to leave their offices.

“We have had a major incident in the building,” the announcement said.

Police also told people to stay away from the windows, as a tactical team conducted a sweep.

Before 3 p.m. court staff began trickling out of the courthouse’s back entrance in, with many stopping briefly to talk to police.

Lawyer Corey Nishio told the Star he was locked in a courtroom on the second floor.

Nishio said he didn’t hear any shots fired, but said people in his courtroom heard that three or four shots were fired near the entrance of the courthouse and that the victim may have been an officer who was handling security.

Criminal defence lawyer Will Jaksa told the Star via Twitter that people in the hallways on the second floor were “scrambling” into rooms on that floor. He was locked down in courtroom 202

“Cops bravely went running towards the gunshots,” Jaksa wrote.

Court staff were being updated by administration and the latest unconfirmed update was that “someone came into the building shooting . . . An officer was taken away by ambulance,” Jaksa said.

A group of more than 40 students from Peel Region School Board, four staff as well as students from the Catholic school board were inside the courthouse for a mock trial when the shooting happened, PDSB director of communications Brian Woodland confirmed.

All students from PDSB were accounted for and safe and their families had been contacted before lunch, Woodland said.

The Star’s Kenyon Wallace, Rachel Mendleson and Dale Brazao were inside the courthouse and were also on lockdown. They saw a police officer in a standard-issue police uniform taken out the front entrance to an ambulance by paramedics and fellow officers from 22 Division, which is stationed just across the street from the courthouse.

A source told the Star that Brampton’s courthouse has officers stationed on the first floor. Unlike court officers, they are armed with handguns.

One witness told the Star she saw a man lying on the ground on the main floor in a pool of blood.

With files from Louie Rosellaand Leslie Armstrong.