Canadian police stop Valentine’s Day shooting plot

TORONTO (AP) – Canadian police have foiled a plot by three suspects who were planning to go to a mall in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and kill as many people as they could before killing themselves on Valentine’s Day, police said Saturday.

One suspect fatally shot himself as police moved in to arrest him, and an American suspect confessed to the plot when she was arrested at the Halifax airport, a senior police official told The Associated Press.

Police and Canadian Justice Minister Peter MacKay said the plot was not related to terrorism.

“This appeared to be a group of murderous misfits that were … prepared to wreak havoc and mayhem on our community,” MacKay said Saturday. “The attack does not appear to have been culturally motivated, therefore not linked to terrorism.”

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said friends Lindsay Kantha Souvannarath, 23, of Geneva, Illinois, and Randall Steven Shepherd, 20, of Nova Scotia, have been charged with conspiracy to commit murder.

Nova Scotia RCMP Commanding Officer Brian Brennan said the suspects planned to go to the Halifax Shopping Center and kill as many people as they could on Saturday, Valentine’s Day, before taking their own lives.