It’s a sight she never wants to see again.
A member of the RCMP’s emergency response team holding a “huge gun” as the team raced in the dark around a South Burnaby neighbourhood that has had two targeted shootings a block away from each other in just over a week’s time.
“It was terrifying,” said the woman, who didn’t want her name used but who lives in the area just west of Gilley Avenue. “I saw him with that huge gun. I just couldn’t believe it. The whole thing was just so scary. I couldn’t sleep after seeing that.”
The NOW spoke with the woman as she stood with her husband on McKee Street near where a targeted shooting Thursday night ended in the death of one person.
The couple said they have lived in the area for 30 years. It is a quiet area on the back slope of South Burnaby that is filled with nice single-family homes and manicured lawns and gardens. The area is situated closed to Byrne Creek Park.
People generally know each other in the neighbourhood, the couple said, but admitted things have gotten worse more recently.
The area has been hit by a rash of break-ins to homes and vehicles. The NOW wrote recently about a man on an ATV pulling into driveways in the area and robbing vehicles.
“We’ve seen the guy on the ATV racing by,” said the woman.
The couple said police are reviewing the footage from their driveway surveillance camera.
Another man walking by the scene was asked by the NOW about the recent happenings and said the break-ins have been going on for a while and that the area has “turned into a bit of a crime haven” lately.
Homicide investigators were in the same South Burnaby neighbourhood near Byrne Creek Ravine Park on Feb. 3 after shots rang out in 6500 block of Portland Street at about 8 p.m.
Police found 32-year-old Chris Kenworthy shot to death in his vehicle. That homicide is believed to be related to a recent spate of gang crime.
- With additional reporting by Cornelia Naylor
