Two people are dead in a mid-morning shooting at an apartment in south Vancouver.
Vancouver Const. Lindsey Houghton said on Tuesday it was too early in the investigation to say whether the homicides were targeted or connected to the recent spate of gang-related shootings in the Lower Mainland.
Police were called to the building (1412-41st Ave.) at 8:40 a.m. after a number of neighbours called 9-1-1 to report gunshots, Houghton said.
“We’ve been to the address in the past, but nothing that I’m aware of that would have any relation to this type of violence.”
The building, which features a small number of apartments above a furniture store and a Money Mart payday-loan outlet, overlooks the busy intersection of 41st and Knight streets.
There appeared to be a bullet hole in one of the second-storey windows.
Jay Su, the owner of Jay’s New And Used Furniture, the commercial space below the suite in which the homicide took place, said he was friends with one of the tenants and said one of the other suites was rented by a young man.
“Sometimes I smelled marijuana,” Su said. “In the store, I smelled the marijuana … around evening, young guys just came in and out. It’s different people.”
The deaths are the city’s ninth and 10th homicides of 2009. There have been more than 30 reported shootings in and around the Lower Mainland in the first 2 1/2 months of this year.
Houghton said police share the concerns and frustrations of the public.
“We’re doing everything we can to target the individuals behind these kinds of crimes. We take gun violence in the city of Vancouver extremely seriously.”
