By Chantal Da Silva – NBCNews

A young Canadian couple, apparently about to get married, were shot dead by their landlord in a rent dispute before the suspect barricaded himself in the house and was killed in a shootout with police, authorities reported.

Officers were first called to a home in the Stoney Creek district of Hamilton, Ont., about 67 kilometers from Toronto, around 5:40 p.m. ET Saturday to reports of gunshots, the police department said. of Hamilton in a press release.

[Al menos nueve heridos, incluidos menores de edad, tras un tiroteo en la playa de Hollywood, Florida]

Upon arrival, they found the bodies of a 27-year-old woman and a 28-year-old man who had been shot and killed, police said.

Officers determined the two lived in the home as tenants and were shot by their landlord in a “landlord-tenant dispute,” police said.

“Early indications are that there was some sort of dispute over the state of the house,” Sergeant Steve Bereziuk told reporters, according to CBC.

The couple, an educational aide and an electrician, were engaged, according to the station. Their identities have not yet been made public. Bereziuk said the couple were “really innocent victims”.

The owner, a 57-year-old man, barricaded himself inside the residence with firearms registered to his name, Hamilton police said.

[Tiroteo en Farmington, Nuevo México, deja tres personas muertas y dos policías heridos]

An emergency response unit confined the area as negotiators tried to resolve the incident in what appears to have been a stalemate that lasted for hours.

At some point during the negotiations, the suspect fired at an armored police vehicle before firing more shots, “resulting in an interaction with the police”, according to authorities.

Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit, which investigates the conduct of law enforcement officers involved in serious incidents, said the suspect was shot and killed in a firefight with police. He was fatally shot around 10 p.m., just over four hours after officers initially responded to the incident, the unit said in a news release.

The 57-year-old man, who has not yet been identified, was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the Special Investigations Unit.

The unit said a team of 10 investigators had been assigned to the case.

Police said the families of both victims have been notified of the couple’s deaths.

[Hablan los sobrevivientes del mortal tiroteo masivo en un centro comercial de Texas: “Salimos corriendo, la gente pisaba a los niños”]

The families, Bereziuk said, “are extremely upset.”

“As you can well imagine, these are not people this should happen to,” Bereziuk said. “They are not involved in any level of crime or lifestyle that could lead to an incident like this,” he added.

“I would like to express my condolences and concern for this weekend’s double homicide at Stoney Creek,” Hamilton Mayor Andrea Horwath said in a tweet. “I am very saddened to learn of this senseless tragedy and my heart goes out to the families of the victims,” he added.