After a night filled with loud Canada Day fireworks, residents in the south Edmonton neighbourhood of Hazeldean woke up Saturday morning to more loud noise.
“I heard a loud car this morning then a couple pop, pops and that’s what woke me up,” Hazeldean resident Will Mages said.
“I heard these two bangs,” another resident Blaire Charbonneau added. “I was waiting and listening if I could hear anything afterward.”
But Charbonneau didn’t, that’s because the loud bangs were not fireworks but gunfire.
Mike Corpuz, who also lives in the neighbourhood, said he saw what happened shortly after 6 a.m. through his doorbell camera.
“There was an altercation, a red truck parked across the street did a U-turn to head west then someone came out of (the house next door),” Corpuz said.
Corpuz added that’s when someone struck the red truck with an object.
“After that, I heard two shots,” Corpuz said. “I bolted out of bed, grabbed my daughters and went downstairs. I noticed the window was broken and bullets went into my daughter’s room.”
Corpuz said a stray bullet entered a bedroom glass window and another by the entrance door, thankfully missing him, his wife and three daughters.
“I was freaked out. First of all, I was like, ‘Are my kids okay, is everyone okay? Okay now let’s go, get downstairs, we cannot stay up here, we’ve got to go phone the police,'” Corpuz said of his thought process during the incident.
Neighbours watched as EPS Tactical arrived at the house next door to Corpuz.
“Just hearing on the loudspeaker, the swat guys (saying), ‘Come out of your house, put your weapons down if you’re armed, put your weapons down otherwise we’re coming in there,'” Charbonneau said.
Police said no one was injured and there is now no risk to the general public.
But that is little comfort for Corpuz and his neighbours as they want more done so that something like this never happens again in their neighbourhood.
“I couldn’t even imagine what we would have done if shots came through our little girl’s room, I couldn’t imagine what that would feel like right now,” Charbonneau said.
“We were just shot at, my kid was were just shot at,” Corpuz said.
Police said there are no suspects at this time. Police said a vehicle that was seen driving away from the area is being investigated.