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Homeless man shot with arrow in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside: police

Vancouver police display real and imitation weapons seized from a Downtown Eastside building after a homeless man was shot with an arrow on Thursday. Vancouver police

Vancouver police are investigating after a homeless man was shot with an arrow in the city’s Downtown Eastside on Thursday.

Police say the 22-year-old victim was standing outside the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre at Columbia and East Cordova streets when someone shot him in the leg from a nearby building.

The man walked a block to the Insite supervised injection site with the arrow lodged below his kneecap, where staff gave him first aid and called 911.

Click to play video: 'Video shows beating of homeless man in Vancouver'
Video shows beating of homeless man in Vancouver

“This level of callousness and disregard is shocking,” VPD Sgt. Steve Addison said in a media release.

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“All signs point to this being a random attack, and we’re incredibly concerned because the victim was already one of our community’s most vulnerable.”

Police think the arrow was fired from the fire escape of a building on East Hastings Street, and said they later recovered a “cache of real and imitation weapons from the building, including crossbows, replica assault rifles, scopes, lights, and lasers.”

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Addison said police believe the suspect fled before officers arrived.

The incident comes just weeks after another homeless man was pushed to the ground and repeatedly kicked by a stranger in Yaletown.

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