Two Montreal-area shootings that occurred within a span of seven hours could be linked to organized crime, investigators say.
On Friday night a 35-year-old man was gunned down in the parking lot outside the Galeries d'Anjou shopping centre in the east end of Montreal.
Then around 2 a.m. on Saturday, a 42-year-old man was shot and killed outside his home in Laval, just north of Montreal.
Laval police say the key indicators of a link to organized crime were the victim’s age and criminal history. Around mid-day Saturday, police transferred the case to Sûreté du Québec, which handles organized crime.
Laval police spokesperson Nathalie Lorrain said investigators believe someone was waiting for the victim.
“We think it was probably the settling of accounts between gangs or something like that,” Lorrain of told CTV Montreal.
The 42-year-old man had just parked his car in a parking lot behind his home. He was shot as he was exiting the car.
“My daughter, she was sleeping in the front room and she says she heard two shots,” one female neighbour said.
The man suffered several gunshot wounds but managed to walk to the front of his home, where he collapsed and later died.
Police are looking into a possible connection between that shooting and the Galeries d'Anjou shooting earlier that night.
Around 7 p.m. Friday, two men were shot in the parking lot of the east end mall. The man who died was found in the parking lot and later died of his injuries. The second man, aged 33, ran into the shopping centre after being injured by the gunfire.
“We just saw a guy run in and it was full of blood and we just basically saw the guy rush in, and I think he went to the washroom,” one male witness told CTV. “And he came back out and he went through the shopping centre.”
For now, suspects in both cases, all believed to be gang members, remain at large.
But not a single eye-witness has come forward.
The Laval shooting has left neighbours on edge, despite being the first murder the city has seen in more than a year
“I feel scared because (this) was a quiet neighbourhood here, and now look what happened,” said the female neighbour.
Meanwhile, Montreal police on Saturday were investigating a third shooting.
The victim, who was in his thirties, was found in his penthouse apartment.
Police say he was shot at least once in the upper body. They got the call around 2 p.m. from a friend of the victim. When they got to the apartment they found the victim lying in a pool of blood.
He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police say that, for now, this latest incident does not appear to be linked to the two other shootings.
With a report from CTV Montreal’s Camille Ross
