The search for the suspect, Travis Baumgartner, 21, began Friday after, the police said, he shot his co-workers while they were refilling A.T.M.’s at a university campus in Edmonton, Alberta.

After the early morning shooting, Mr. Baumgartner vanished in his pickup truck with cash, as well as a company-issued gun and body armor, which led to widespread anxiety about his next move. Despite their large-scale search, the police had no idea of Mr. Baumgartner’s whereabouts until his truck, bearing license plates stolen from his mother, appeared at the international border crossing at Lynden, Wash., on Saturday afternoon. The truck was flagged by an automated license plate reader and surrounded by officers of the United States Customs and Border Protection service.

Mike Milne, a spokesman for the border service, said that Mr. Baumgartner did not resist arrest.

Before turning Mr. Baumgartner over to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police late Saturday, the American officials found a backpack containing 334,000 Canadian dollars, or about $327,000, in his truck but no weapons, Mr. Milne said. Even if American border officials had not been alerted by their Canadian counterparts to watch for him, Mr. Baumgartner’s plan to escape to the United States had a significant flaw. Mr. Milne said the man was traveling without a passport.

John Ernst, the uncle of Michelle Shegelski, one of the guards who was killed, welcomed the arrest. He remained apprehensive, however, about the future.

“It’s a relief that he’s caught,” Mr. Ernst told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. “But for the families, this has just begun. It’s far from over, and it’s going to be a long, long struggle.”

Aside from the widespread shock in Canada that anyone would shoot four co-workers to steal from an employer, the killings raised concerns about the security guard business in Canada. Low pay and the potentially dangerous nature of the work make hiring difficult for armored-car companies. That is particularly the case in Alberta, where the rapid expansion of the oil business has created many high-paying jobs for unskilled workers and created a labor shortage in other industries.

Unlike most other private security guards in Canada, where handguns are tightly controlled, all armored-car workers are allowed to carry firearms.

Friends of Mr. Baumgartner told Canadian news outlets that he began working for G4S Cash Solutions a few months ago after abandoning his ambition to become a police officer. In a Facebook posting this month, Mr. Baumgartner mused, with a misspelling, about shooting people: “I wonder if I’d make the 6 o’clock news if I just started poping people off.”

Matthew Schuman, the armored-car crew member who survived the shooting, remained in critical condition early Sunday morning. Like his colleagues who died, Mr. Schuman was found locked inside a room used to service cash machines in a combined shopping mall and residence at the University of Alberta.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/18/world/americas/suspect-in-campus-shooting-in-canada-arrested-at-us-border.html

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