A day later, the dire reality of Tuesday’s police shooting in Calgary’s Abbeydale community is just starting to sink in for neighbours.
Eleven-year-old Bryanna’s home is next door to the one where the shooter hid out, in a garage that later went up in flames.
But before that, the suspect tried making his way into her home – where she was alone.
She said it began with a car alarm, then she heard banging on her front door.
The gunman then continued banging on the back door, while Bryanna called her mom and hid, locked in a downstairs bathroom.
“She said, ‘Someone’s trying to get in the house’,” said Sharon, Bryanna’s mom. “’They wiggled the door handles and I’m scared.’”
“I was thinking—I was hoping, ‘Oh please glass door be strong enough that it won’t break.’”
That’s when the gunman moved to the garage next door.
Watch below: Raw video shows flames and smoke billowing out of a home near where a Calgary police officer was shot.
Neighbours soon saw smoke.
“I heard a second bang and somebody broke the window from inside and I was like, ‘Oh my god someone’s inside the garage,’” next-door-neighbour Carol Gibson said. “I think it was the cop that got shot I saw was going back there and then the shooting started.
“I saw the flying glass going towards the fence. So I turned to the kids and said, ‘Downstairs! Now!’”
Her family moved downstairs and then heard banging on the door and the doorbell being pushed again and again.
“One of the cops came in and asked how many people were in the house. And says, ‘OK, everybody in the basement now. Lock the door and can we have access to the upstairs and the main area?’”
The family was later evacuated while the shooting continued and the fire raged next door. They’re now working with insurance on the damages, including to replace a window that was broken by police in the ordeal. They’re also trying to rid their house of the smell of smoke and intense odour of gunpowder.
Watch below: Calgary police officer Jordan Forget is recovering at Foothills Medical Centre following a dramatic manhunt and shooting that unfolded in the Abbeydale neighbourhood. Blake Lough recaps what led to the shooting.
Meanwhile, Bryanna is just thankful she had taken her mother’s repeated advice: don’t answer the door when home alone.
“If I had opened the door, it could have ended badly.”
Five-year Calgary Police Service member Jordan Forget suffered two wounds, according to Calgary Police Association president Les Kaminski, who visited Forget in hospital on Wednesday. He said injuries were visible in Forget’s arm and chest.
“He’s doing incredibly well,” Kaminski said. “I can’t tell you how thankful we are for how this played out. The family is doing incredibly well. He has a fantastic support system.”
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