We were running late to check out of our hotel because my two young girls had demanded to use the pool one last time. I indulged them. The squeals of laughter were worth it. Afterward, we hustled to pack, race out the room and at 11:40 a.m. the lift doors opened in the lobby of the Hilton in Côte-des-Neiges district of Montreal.

Our path was blocked by staff. There was, one hotel worker informed us, a shooter. I sent my wife and children back up to our room and, with the dubious conviction of a professional journalist, went to investigate.

My family and I had come to Montréal for a joyful Jewish wedding

Through the glass of the hotel entrance, I saw a male officer lying in the street and female cop with her pistol drawn scanning the area. He had been shot in the abdomen and was clearly in a bad way. I asked the hotel manager to open the locked front door and he looked at me like I was mad. Instead, I found a side door and slipped out.

As I moved towards the scene on the other side of the street, I saw a crumple of camouflage on the ground. A mop of straw brown hair, green tactical trousers and black boots – the shooter. I was later told by a witness that he had been firing at police with an old-fashioned hunting rifle. He was clearly dead. More police arrived and began treating the seriously injured officer.

Thinking it was all over, I turned back to our hotel. But police said there might be a second shooter and tried to usher me along with a small crowd into another area. I, however, was determined to go back to my room to be with my wife and children. As I waited for the lift, a cop with a gun drawn confronted me. We had a strong disagreement, then he grabbed me by my backpack and marched me out. He was armed and in the circumstances it wasn’t an argument I was likely to win.

Police told the small crowd to follow them and we were taken to a nearby building. We went up a few flights of stairs and ended up in a conference room adjacent to the hotel.

We set about reinforcing the room, pushing chair legs through door handles. Then one door started rattling. Someone was trying to push through. Was it the second shooter or police? We didn’t take any chances. People moved away from the centre of the doors so that if a shot came through they wouldn’t be hit. I picked up a chair – I know, what use against a gun? – and put two steak knives in my back pocket. Others followed suit. Children hid behind curtains and tables.

It all went quiet and, after a while, the room breathed again. I found a coffee machine, poured a cup and it was very good. Then, from the window, I could see Swat units were moving around the building. Towards our hotel. My wife and 12-year-old daughter were messaging me to see if I was OK and I realised in the chaos I hadn’t replied. They sounded frantic. This is the point of a terror attack. Violence but also fear.

A Swat team arrived and shouted for us to take down the barricade. As we opened the doors, I put my hands in the air for fear of being mistaken for a gunman. They were shouting in French. Once inside, an officer gathered us together and said we were moving to a ‘hardened’ shelter. We moved in crocodile file, a single-file line with hands on the person in front, and were taken back downstairs and over the road to a Jewish bakery. If we were here for some time, at least we wouldn’t starve.

My family and I had come to Montréal for a joyful Jewish wedding, which ended late last night. This is a very Jewish neighbourhood. I have no way of knowing but I suspect the shooting may have been connected to that fact. In the bakery, I saw one of the workers from last night’s wedding and we smiled about how life had turned out since he’d entertained us with his dancing.

Finally I spoke to my wife and children on the phone. They were in the hotel room and had heard people shouting outside. Gunmen or police? They didn’t know. I’ve never heard my seven and 12-year-old girls – Thea and Rose – so fearful. I’d made a huge mistake leaving them.

‘Daddy come and get us, we’re so scared.’ All I could do was watch the exterior of the building from a window as police and then the soldiers poured in. A few minutes later, I got a text from our eldest. ‘There’s police in our room rn they are going to keep us safe.’ Then they made friends with other little girls sheltering in our room.

In the bakery people began to feel safer and started talking. I walked through the crowd asking people what they had witnessed. One man who from his car had seen the shooter firing his weapon had momentarily thought of ramming him. Another man began talking to me about how he had used first aid on the downed officer. Then he stopped. He couldn’t bring himself to describe exactly what happened.

Now I’m waiting to be allowed to go back to my wife and children. I’m still in the Jewish bakery as I write this. Some of us are praying for the police officer, a hero who was badly, badly wounded. It sounds trite to call him a hero – but that’s what he is. Some of the people I am sheltering with might be dead if he hadn’t put his life on the line. And what about my children? My wife? Men like this police officer are the antidote to whatever drove that sad, twisted body I saw in the parking lot.