Calgary reaching ‘boiling point’ as city looks for new solutions to shootings

Calgary’s Martindale community has seen a lot of violence lately, including a triple shooting over the weekend.

Calgary police say the 15-year-old girl who was shot and killed in the community a month ago was not the intended target. Investigators are still on the hunt for her killer and for the person or persons responsible for killing a man and injuring two others in the same neighbourhood on Saturday.

It was terrifying and chaotic scene on Saturday afternoon on Martindale Boulevard, as witnesses helped two men who had just been shot. Another man lay dead in the alley.

“They started running towards the road and they just fell down. One here and one there,” said witness Amandeep Singh. “One person who could not run just fell down there in the back alley.”

The violence occurred in an alley next to Martindale Boulevard beside the Dashmesh Culture Centre where people were coming and going from prayers at the gurdwara.

Residents say the they’re concerned with the crimes happening here and the number of neglected rental homes on the stretch of road.

“This area is densely populated with rentals. They are investment properties,” Singh said.

“It’s the frustration. It’s coming to a boiling point and I don’t want it to spill over,” said Ward 5 Coun. Raj Dhaliwal. “The things I’m hearing loud and clear is that there’s two cities within the city. The northeast is a different city than the rest of the city. The northeast does not get proper treatment.”

Dhaliwal spent Monday morning with members of the Calgary Police Service driving through the area.

He’s heard the same concerns about neglected rental properties on Martindale Boulevard that may be connected to social disorder. Dhaliwal said he’s looking into what the city and province can do.

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“The issues are the upkeeping of the properties, missing landlords, people not checking on who they’re renting to, people not doing proper background checks. Sometimes just missing voices. When the neighbours have concerns, they don’t know who to talk to because there’s no contact information,” Dhaliwal said.

Raj Sidhu, the director of operations at the Dashmesh Culture Association, said community members need to come together to address the crime issue.

“The landlords and residents in the area and also our membership in our community need to keep vigilant and keep an eye on what’s going on because this is a community issue,” Sidhu said.

The triple shooting comes a month after a 15-year-old Sarah Jorquera  was shot and killed in a car in the same neighbourhood in an alley behind Martindale Drive.

On Monday police said they now do not believe she was the intended target.

“I would say, fundamentally, Calgary is a safe city first and foremost,” said inspector Scott Todd with the Calgary Police Service who was touring the area with Dhaliwal on Monday.

The Calgary Police inspector for District 5 says the strong sense of community in northeast Calgary is high and he encourages people to continue to come forward with any type of information they they have.

“In my experience, when a major event occurs we tend to have quite a bit of community involvement coming forward. Sometimes indirectly — they can come through a spiritual leader or through a government official, but there’s a great deal of ownership of community in northeast Calgary,” he said.

The killers involved in both Saturday’s shooting and in the death of Sarah Jorquera are still at large, so police say information from the public is critical.

“One thing I have seen in my time working in northeast Calgary is that the sense of community ownership is very high and pride is very high. So we benefit from that in terms of community support and progressing our investigations and taking ownership on issues.”