The two young people aged 14 and 16 who died in an accident after shooting in the direction of two men last Thursday could have acted as part of an initiation, believe certain police sources, dismissing the thesis of scoring mentioned shortly after the facts.
One of the two alleged shooters could be linked to Saint-Léonard street gangs, according to our sources.
Everything indicates that their victims were targeted at random while the motive of the shooters remains unclear. The thesis of scoring was first mentioned by various speakers.
THE scoringthe practice of shooting in an enemy sector in order to score points in the context of a conflict between gangs to taunt the enemy clan, was mentioned shortly after the episode of armed violence last Thursday.
The authorities are instead studying the possibility that they could have acted as part of an initiation where an older bandit would have challenged them, according to our police sources. The latter also believe that the young people could have been poisoned.
The fact that the shots were fired at two individuals in places little frequented by the criminal community does not correspond to the usual modus operandi of street gangs, according to our police sources who therefore rule out the scoring theory.
Thursday morning, the vehicle of the two young people hit a tree, rue Saint-Zotique, not far from the 20e Avenue, in the borough of Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie.
Their run began not far from there, at the intersection of Boulevard Pie-IX and Rue de Bellechasse, where shots first rang out around 5 a.m. Thursday morning. The shots, coming from a moving vehicle, hit a driver in the shoulder.
The two young men then fled the scene before targeting another motorist, this time at the corner of Saint-Joseph Boulevard and Henri-Julien Avenue, in the Plateau Mont-Royal sector. However, this 58-year-old driver was not hit despite the gunshots.
Targeted at random
The two targeted men have no connection with each other, are not known to criminal or police circles and would have been chosen at random.
The areas where the shootings occurred – Plateau-Mont-Royal and Rosemont – are not the subject of ongoing conflicts involving the street gangs of Saint-Léonard, identified by the initials STL in the underworld. One of the two alleged shooters displayed this acronym on social networks and would have had links with certain individuals gravitating around street gangs in the neighborhood. However, he is not identified as a full member.
The Saint-Léonard sector (STL) is divided into several gangs. Their members and their connections identify themselves on the Internet by the numbers 192 and 141 or the initials STL.
Street gangs in the Saint-Léonard and Anjou sectors are mired in a violent conflict which has caused several victims and injuries in the last two years.
A crowdfunding campaign was launched online by relatives of the 14-year-old suspect.
With Daniel Renaud, The Press