Correction: A previous version of this story identified the victims as teenagers. However, the victims were two adult men.
Residents in Regina’s Glencairn neighbourhood are shaken up after a shooting sent two men to hospital Sunday morning.
The shooting happened behind F.W. Johnson Collegiate in the 400 block of Fines Drive.
Dale Lakeman, who lives across the street from the school, says he heard two gunshots around 4:30 a.m. Sunday.
“I didn’t correlate the sound to anything else but maybe a door slamming,” said Lakeman, adding he originally thought someone was breaking into a car.
Curious about the sound, Lakeman got out of bed to look out his front door. He says that’s when an SUV without its lights on raced down the street.
Lakeman didn’t find out about the shooting until police officers knocked on his door later that morning.
Lakeman has lived in the area for most of his life and he says this isn’t the first shooting. He says one happened in his apartment building last year.
“What is it? Is it just careless storage of firearms and they get into the wrong hands or is it a gang-related thing?” Lakeman said.
“What’s going on in this neighbourhood?”
According to the Regina Police Community Crime Report, there were 119 assaults in the Dewdney East neighbourhood in 2018, which is up from 76 assaults the year before. The number of drug charges decreased and the amount of crimes with weapons stayed about the same.
Over the years, Lakeman says he’s seen a shift in the neighbourhood when it comes to crime.
“I’ve seen the changes. It was a community of people that could walk down the street and say hello to each other,” said Lakeman, adding people are now suspicious of other residents’ actions.
“They’re afraid to confront people that are being violent or doing something late at night,” Lakeman said. “When you say something, you become the target. And nobody wants to become the target.”
The two men who were shot are recovering from non-life threatening injuries. Police say they believe the shooting is not associated to the school itself.