The neighbors of a disused daycare center riddled with bullets late Tuesday afternoon in Rivière-des-Prairies are worried that their neighborhood will become the scene of more and more such incidents.
Posted at 5:26 p.m.
On Wednesday, the impacts of gunfire were still clearly visible in the window of the Bambino II Educational Daycare, on Boulevard André Ampère. The tranquility of the neighborhood contrasted with the scene of violence the day before.
At the end of the afternoon, around 5:30 p.m., officers from the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) were called to the scene after having alerted by means of 9-1-1 of shots of fire fired in the area.
“On the spot, the police located casings on the ground and impacts on a vehicle and a shop window,” said SPVM spokesperson Caroline Chevrefils on Wednesday, adding that no suspect had yet been apprehended. The event caused no casualties.
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, THE PRESS
The bullet holes were still clearly visible on the disused storefront on Tuesday.
next to children
However, if the Bambino II Educational Daycare was empty at the time of the shooting, another belonging to the same owner and located a stone’s throw away was still crowded with children.
“The children were outside, they were playing,” says the owner of the nearby grocery store, Joe Bertin. “I didn’t even think it was gunshots, I thought it was firecrackers”, he adds, adding that he quickly understood the extent of the case when ” 3 or 4 police cars”.
Crossed in the street, the owner of the two daycares declined the request for an interview with The Press.
6 or 7 strokes
Caroline Courtemanche was in the living room of her apartment located just next to the premises. “My youngest squealed in the window when she heard that. Immediately I grabbed her to make her back up, saying to her: come on, what are you doing here, ”she says.
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, THE PRESS
Caroline Courtemanche has lived in Rivière-des-Prairies for 40 years. She says she has seen an increase in gunfire episodes over the past decade.
She says she heard 6 or 7 detonations in all, then saw two sports cars, one black and one white, leave the scene at top speed.
“It’s not that it doesn’t worry me, but in Montreal asteure, it’s everywhere,” says the mother of two daughters who has lived in Rivière-des-Prairies for 40 years and has seen an increase in episodes of beatings. fire in recent years.
“A lot of stress”
“My children were at home, thank God, blows his neighbor, Sabrina. When I come home from work at midnight in the evening, it gives me great stress to miss it.
Witnesses interviewed by The Press still remember a shooting that occurred last year a few blocks away, on Boulevard Perras, which left three dead and two injured.
A neighbor of the scene for 35 years, Claude Pottier now judges that it is no longer a “good sector”. “It doesn’t shoot often, but there is movement,” he said, adding that he found the situation “worrying”.