A sixty-year-old is delighted that her only son is still alive after being the target, early Thursday, of two suspects who shot two motorists in the street before driving into a tree and dying while trying to flee the police.
“It’s my party at the end of the week. It’s a beautiful gift that he’s alive,” confided to Newspaper, Thursday afternoon, the mother of the 41-year-old man who was targeted.
The 60-year-old lady, who insisted on keeping her identity quiet for fear of reprisals, was visibly hoping to see her son rather than our representative in the entrance to the Montreal apartment building, a few hours after the incident.
Early Thursday morning, around 5 a.m., his only son left for work in his car. He hadn’t even traveled a kilometer when he was targeted.
At the shoulder
Several shots were then fired in his direction, in the middle of the street, from a moving vehicle. Two suspects were on board.
Most of the projectiles hit the driver’s side window. The forty-year-old was injured in a shoulder. He was taken to hospital.
“The first deal he did, he called me. He seemed in definite shock. I didn’t recognize him. He told me not to worry. It’s hard on a mother,” says the lady, who lives alone with her son.
Erik Peters / QMI Agency
In pieces
Barely 10 minutes later, five kilometers away, a second motorist was targeted, at the corner of Saint-Joseph and Henri-Julien, on Le Plateau-Mont-Royal.
Shots fired at his car shattered the back window. Luckily, the 58-year-old man who was also on his way to work was not injured.
The suspects’ vehicle was then found by the police around 5:30 a.m., in the Rosemont district.
A few moments later, they were driving at full speed on the cycle path of rue Saint-Zotique before violently colliding with a tree in front of a residential building.
One of the occupants of the sport utility vehicle died instantly.
The other man was taken to hospital in very critical condition. He was pronounced dead shortly after. Both men were in their twenties.
Maxime Deland / QMI Agency
But why?
It is currently unknown why the two deceased suspects opened fire on the two motorists.
Were they chosen at random? Are these more extreme cases of road rage?
These two hypotheses will be closely studied by investigators.
“It’s a stupid thing that unfortunately sometimes happens in Montreal,” says the mother of one of the victims with exasperation, referring to the phenomenon of scoring. I have no idea what the story is, but unfortunately the two people who could have told us are dead.”
Maxime Deland / QMI Agency
THE scoring involves scoring “points” by attacking sometimes random people in an enemy gang’s territory.
Moreover, the two men targeted by the firearm projectiles are not known to the authorities.
The Bureau of Independent Investigations and the Sûreté du Québec will try to shed light on the events.
– With Maxime Deland, QMI Agency