Two people have been charged in relation to a shooting spree that led to a car being pursued by police through the city, out to Beaumont and into Devon Saturday night.
Tariq Sayed Mohammed Aman, 31, whom police accuse of driving the suspect vehicle, and Neanna Wuttunee, 28, are both jointly charged by the Edmonton Police Service with over 35 offences.
Information from Alberta Justice specified Aman has 41 charges against him while Wuttunee is facing 37.
The charges include six counts of committing an offence, four counts of recklessly discharging a firearm, three counts of assault with a weapon and two counts of aggravated assault. Police said Aman is also facing dangerous driving-related charges.
Previous driving-related offenses prohibited Aman from operating a vehicle, police told Global News — he should have not been behind the wheel at all that night.
The shooting spree started around 9 p.m. in west Edmonton when two separate drivers – a man and a woman – were shot at in their vehicles.
Only the woman sustained minor injuries, police said.
The car believed to be carrying the suspects then reportedly sped over to south-central Edmonton where a man and woman were shot at in a vehicle on Whyte Avenue and 107th Street, and then another man was shot at further east on 82nd Avenue near 77th Street.
The couple injured in the 107th Street shooting sustained serious but non-life-threatening injuries and were taken to hospital, police said on Sunday.
Police officers from across Edmonton joined forces to find the vehicle, which police said was seen heading south of the city towards Beaumont just after 11 p.m.
Police said the suspects were driving erratically, crossing lane lines and speeding when officers found them.
Both city police and RCMP continued to pursue the suspects, whom they said would not stop, into Devon where they were ultimately apprehended at one of the town’s major intersection, near the Devon General Hospital.
Police said a gun was found at the scene of the arrest.
“I’m really, really concerned about the escalation of violence in our city,” Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said Monday, giving a nod to a recent fatal stabbing at an Edmonton LRT station and the weekend’s shootings.
He commended the Edmonton Police Service’s quick response to the shootings but said he is really concerned about the accessibility of guns.
“I don’t understand why, in an urban centre like ours, why people need handguns or illegal guns that are available and cause harm to Edmontonians,” he said.
Sohi sent a letter to the federal government last week calling for bail reform after a man was stabbed to death. The man charged in the attack is a recently released convict who was supposed to be on house arrest.
Sohi added Monday that the city, province and the feds need to look at the root causes of the violence.
While the city has made increased investments into safety, policing, crisis diversion, and Sohi said there has been some improvement, he said there hasn’t been “significant enough improvement that we need to see.”
“We need to get to the root cause. We need to invest in housing; We need to invest in containing gun violence, gang violence. We need to invest in the mental health … in addictions recovery and treatment that people are struggling with,” he said.
“I think without those interventions, we will continue to do what we can, and we called on all of our partners to step up and make Edmonton the safest place that can be possible.”