EDMONTON- A man has been taken to hospital after being shot in an officer involved shooting in west Edmonton early Thursday morning.
Police officers were not injured in the incident, which began when the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) responded to a weapons complaint in the La Perle neighbourhood around 5:45 a.m.
Police are saying little about the incident, but Andrea DelCol, who lives in the area, says she heard as many as three gun shots shortly after 6:00 a.m.
DelCol says she then watched as a vehicle sped away from the scene immediately after she heard the gunshots.
“He came out of the driveway of the apartment complex, and the RCMP, or the municipal police tried the pit maneuver. It didn’t work and then he went ripping up the street,” DelCol recalled.
“I went out to my back window, and there’s a sniper sitting in my backyard right now on my barbecue, and they’ve got a unit locked down with guns drawn on it,” explained DelCol.
Police then came into her home and DelCol’s daughter was asked to get out of bed.
“The sniper just came into my room,” said Rhaea DelCol. “He was knocking on the window, and then he (asked) ‘can I come up into your room?’ and used it as a lookout.”
Edmonton police held the scene in the area of 180th Street and 96th Avenue for several hours after the shooting.
Meanwhile, witnesses say an SUV sped off and a police pursuit ensued.
A short time later, five men jumped out of the SUV and fired several shots at an Enoch home, according to the homeowner. The woman, who has asked not to be named, says investigators told her they believe the same people are responsible for both crimes.
The suspect SUV was stopped a short time later on Whitemud Drive, east of Highway 60.
The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) has now taken over the investigation, as it does with any officer involved shooting. Because the investigation is still active, officers aren’t releasing much information other than an officer was involved.
“As of now, I can confirm that one individual was taken to hospital with injuries sustained from a gunshot,” Jane McClellan, acting executive director of ASIRT said Thursday afternoon. “There are currently multiple scenes that are involved in this incident and ASIRT investigators have been deployed to all.”
Five people- three men, a woman and a child- were taken into custody from the initial scene in the La Perle neighbourhood. The men who were inside the SUV were also taken into custody.
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