A section of Broadway is closed after three people, including two bystanders, were injured in a shooting on a busy Saturday night.
Police said they responded to reports of a shooting near Broadway and Ontario Street around 9:15 p.m.
“There was a guy running down the street just shooting a gun, running down the sidewalk, aiming and shooting at something, I didn’t see what,” a witness told Global News. “Forty-five seconds later I looked, and there’s that same guy – appeared to be the same guy – down on the ground.”
Police said a man in his 20s was sent to hospital with life-threatening injuries. Police believe the man was targeted.
A Vancouver man in his 30s sustained minor injuries and was treated at the scene. It is believed that he was not targeted.
A 15-year-old Coquitlam teen, who was in a vehicle passing by at the time of the shooting, was seriously injured and taken to hospital.
No arrests have been made.
“This is rare that these kinds of things happen and that when it does, we put all of our resources available to us to investigate this type of crime,” said Srgt. Jason Robillard.
“This is a priority for us and we’re all concerned as a police department.”
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Police have closed a section of Broadway between Quebec and Manitoba Streets and said the area is expected to remain closed for several more hours.
“It’s definitely unsettling to hear this has happened in our neighbourhood,” said Jeni Bond, who owns the yoga studio next to where the shooting took place.
She says the studio is also dealing with cancellations because police have cordoned off the area as they continue to investigate.
SFU Criminology professor Rob Gordon said the current gun violence can be linked to the unstable drug market in Canada and the U.S.
He added with laws changing to regulate marijuana, gangsters are firing at each other over the amount of dollars coming in.
“People will look at that and say, ‘Well, let them get on with it.’ The problem is of course that innocent bystanders get hit and people are killed as a result.”
According to Gordon the public isn’t in any more considerable danger, but innocent people do get hurt every now and then.
2018 has seen a number of shootings and reports of shots fired across Metro Vancouver, including a pair of men in their 20s who police say were shot in a targeted attack the week prior.
~With files from Kyle Benning
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