Police are investigating another fatal shooting with possible links to organized crime in the Montreal area.
Officers in Longueuil, Que., say the victim was shot Thursday at 1:30 a.m. inside his residence in the city on Montreal’s south shore. He was declared dead at the scene.
Local police have identified the 31-year-old victim as Joas Jean-Baptiste.
“I was brutally woken up because I heard gunshots,” said the victim’s next-door neighbour Lucy Paquette.
Paquette says a few minutes later, the victim’s girlfriend knocked on her door in distress and told her her partner had been shot and killed.
“I find this very, very deplorable,” she said. “There are hot neighbourhoods…. but when it happens in your neighbourhood, you realize that you’re not safe from this unfortunately gratuitous violence.”
Provincial police spokeswoman Sgt. Aurelie Guindon said Thursday her force had taken over the investigation because of its possible links to organized crime, adding there have been no arrests.
The shooting came less than a day after the Quebec government announced a new unit composed of Montreal and provincial police officers to fight weapons trafficking.
That unit was created partly in response to a brazen daylight shooting in Montreal on Monday that left three people dead and two others injured.
Guindon said it’s too early to link Thursday morning’s shooting with the triple slaying.
–With files from Global’s Gloria Henriquez