VANCOUVER -Â Two men arrested after a shooting early Sunday on a busy Gastown street have been released by police, Vancouver police said Monday.
Const. Lindsey Houghton said the initial information about the suspects changed throughout the day, meaning police did not have enough evidence to support criminal charges. There are no other suspects.
Houghton said there is no indication the shooting, which saw four people hospitalized, is gang-related.
The four injured people are all still considered innocent bystanders, said police, who still don’t know the motive for the shooting.
Two of the victims stayed overnight in hospital. One man was released, and one woman requires plastic surgery for her wrist.
The shooting took place early Sunday on a busy Gastown street that was packed with revellers spilling out of bars as they celebrated Halloween.
It happened just days after Vancouver police issued a warning Friday about the “high probability” of gang-related violence in the area over the weekend.
Vancouver police spokeswoman Jana McGuinness said someone called 911 at around 2:15 a.m. saying shots had been fired in the 300-block of Water Street, at the corner of Richards Street near the Shine nightclub.
Three women and a man were standing together in a group on the north sidewalk when two suspects came up and opened fire on the crowd.
“Three people went down to the ground and the suspects took off,” McGuinness said at the scene Sunday.
All the victims sustained non life-threatening injuries. Two of the women were released from hospital Sunday.
“This is a call that police dread. A call of a shooting in a public place where the potential exists for innocent victims to be caught up in the violence,” said McGuinness.
Two suspects fled the scene on foot after the shots were fired. Descriptions of the suspects from witnesses at the scene helped police locate them about 20 minutes after the incident, said McGuinness.
One of the suspects was arrested near Cordova and Granville streets, while the other was located just east of the shooting scene.
Police believe the victims are innocent and do not know why the suspects would shoot directly at them.
“It’s disturbing to think that for whatever reason someone would open fire on a group of people and that appears to be what has happened here. Whether there are any associations between the people and the suspects that is still unclear.”
One of the suspects was arrested near Cordova and Granville Streets, while the other was located just east of the shooting scene.
Police cordoned off the area and more than a dozen witnesses were taken by bus to the police station for interviews. At the scene Sunday, a silver Vancouver party bus was parked with its doors open. McGuinness said it was inadvertently caught up in the crime scene but is not believed the victims were part of the party bus.
On Friday, Vancouver police issued a warning about the high probability of gang-related violence. Police said there will be an increased police presence in the area of the PNE and the Granville Street entertainment district throughout the weekend.
“We can’t make a link to that at this point but of course we are not going to leave any stones unturned,” said McGuinness.
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