Gun violence | Another hot weekend

(Laval) A 28-year-old man died and five other people were injured in two separate firearms incidents overnight Saturday to Sunday in Greater Montreal. The police are investigating the possibility that the two episodes are linked. The trend of the very hot start to the year thus seems to be confirmed.

Vincent Larin
The Press

Mayssa Ferah
The Press

The sad sequence began on boulevard Curé-Labelle, in Laval, where, around 1:30 a.m., five members of the same family were targeted at the exit of a party organized in the Paragon reception hall.

Junior Lemoyne Printemps, 28, succumbed to his injuries while a 14-year-old boy was seriously injured when their Dodge Charger was riddled with bullets, on the driver’s side, barely a hundred meters from the parking lot. Two of the three other passengers suffered minor injuries from flying glass.

The teenager, a resident of the United States visiting Quebec, was out of danger at the end of the day on Sunday, but could retain significant sequelae, according to our information. Neither the deceased nor the other passengers were known to the police.

Sunday, passing The Pressthe car whose front windows were marked by several bullet holes had just been loaded onto a platform truck.

A command post had been established in the parking lot of an IGA grocery store adjacent to the crime scene by officers from the Service de police de Laval (SPL), who were trying to gather various information.

A “very family” event

Despite the reputation of the neighborhood, recognized as a hot spot in Laval, the owner of the Oasis gallery, Joe Saba, claims to have never had any trouble with the Paragon establishment, a neighboring business. “No, no, there was never a problem, no party problem or anything,” he said.

Reached by telephone, the spouse of the owner of the Paragon, Sophie Toutoudjian, confirmed that a 50^and birthday had indeed been organized in the reception hall on Saturday evening.

However, according to him, the party brought together people of all ages, including children, and there was nothing to suggest the sequence of events.

“It was very family-friendly, very quiet,” she insisted, adding that it was the first time that the establishment had been involved in a police case in this way.

SPL investigators are trying, with the help of their Montreal colleagues, to establish whether this event could be linked to another shooting that occurred a little later in the night, a few dozen kilometers away.

A conflict escalates in Saint-Laurent

In the front parking lot of an anonymous building in an industrial park in the borough of Saint-Laurent, in Montreal, two cars crashed against each other were still there late Sunday morning, alongside an empty vodka bottle left there.

At this location on Hickmore Street, almost at dawn, around 4:10 a.m., officers from the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) were called to intervene, following a call about gunshots. .

“According to initial information, a gathering was taking place in a room located in the industrial sector, and a conflict would have degenerated outside. And that’s when the two victims were injured,” said SPVM spokesperson Jean-Pierre Brabant.

At the scene, they found, seated in one of the cars, a seriously injured man in his thirties; he was taken to hospital and there is no fear for his life. Some time later, another man, this one aged 22, showed up at a nearby hospital. Due to his injuries, staff saw fit to call the SPVM who were able to establish a link between the man and the scene on Hickmore Street.

The place is well known to the police, even if it was the first time that an episode of its kind occurred there. According to our information, premises are often rented there in order to organize parties without fear of inconveniencing the neighbors in this very spaced out area.

The SPVM’s Eclipse squad has also been there in the past to conduct information-gathering operations.

In the case of the two events, no arrests had yet been made, and investigations were continuing on Sunday.

A strong trend

These events are part of a major trend in the greater Montreal area. The Press reported on April 18 that it was already experiencing a very hot start to the year in terms of firearm violence with approximately twice as many events as for the same period in 2020 and 2021.

The police fear a hot spring, especially since there would also be tensions in the organized crime world, in particular within the mafia.

It should be noted that the Government of Quebec launched the Centaur strategy in 2021, overseen by the Sûreté du Québec, to combat the proliferation of firearms observed more particularly since the end of 2019.

The SPVM also relies on its Multidisciplinary Firearms Teams (EMAF) and its Narcotics Sections, headed by the Organized Crime Division, to fight against this scourge.

With the collaboration of Daniel Renaud, The Press