2 dead after daylight shooting in south Edmonton residential neighbourhood

Community reacts to daylight shooting Residents of Edmonton's Cavanagh community express concern after a daytime shooting on April 8, 2024.

Two people are dead and one person is in hospital as a result of a shooting in south Edmonton over the noon hour on Monday.

Emergency crews were called to a residential area at Cavanagh Boulevard and 30 Avenue SW around noon, according to the Edmonton Police Service.

"There are no immediate concerns for public safety at this time and responding officers have secured the scene. EPS homicide investigators will be leading this investigation," an EPS spokesperson said in an email to media at 1:24 p.m.

In a news release sent out at 9:06 p.m., EPS confirmed a 49-year-old and a 57-year-old man had died, and a 51-year-old man was taken to hospital with serious, life-threatening injuries, adding police are not looking for any suspects.

Autopsies have been scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday.

The family of one of the victims has identified him to CTV News Edmonton as Buta Singh Gill, owner of Edmonton-based Gill Built Homes.

Multiple sources tell CTV News Edmonton the shooter was a roofer who had done work for Gill Built Homes in the past, and the injured man is also an employee of Gill Built Homes.

Sources also tell CTV News Edmonton the shooter fatally shot himself.

EPS says it's too soon to say if the case is connected to a series of extortion investigations involving members of the South Asian building community.

At least 50 people gathered at the scene on Monday afternoon, most of them members of the South Asian building community.

Several people in the group could be seen crying.

'There's a shooter, you need to run' 

A woman who says she witnessed the shooting as she was driving home described the scene to CTV News Edmonton.

Lindsay Hilton said she saw a man walking down Cavanagh Boulevard wearing construction attire. She says a black Nissan car pulled out of a nearby construction site, did a U-turn, drove up behind the man and bumped him.

"The man in the construction vest had his gun out, pointed at the car and shot once into the driver's side window, then I went right around the corner because I didn't know what was going to happen," she told CTV News Edmonton." I heard two more gunshots following."

Hilton says she pulled over and called 911, adding she feels traumatized by the situation.

"I have had moments of breaking down like this into tears because it's just something I think that you just don't expect to see in broad daylight," she said.

"It just looked like another interaction of guys stopping to talk at the construction site, so when I saw him pull that gun and shoot, it just took me a minute even to put together what happened."

Abby Sieban told CTV News Edmonton she was walking with her children in the stroller when she heard gunshots.

"We were approaching the construction site and we kind of heard probably three or four shots. I thought it was a nail gun at first because it's a construction site," Sieban said.

"But then we saw some of the guys, some of the construction workers start running away. One of them kind of came towards me and flagged me down, and he just told me, 'You can't go over there. There's a shooter, you need to run the other way!'"

Former Edmonton city councillor and former EPS member Mohinder Banga said he came to the scene after hearing Gill had been killed in the shooting.

"He was such a nice person, and he would jump in to help people whenever they needed help and without looking for anything in return. That was his quality," he said.

"Obviously, you can see all the people here, they're all well-wishers and the community is in shock right now."

No further details have been provided by police.

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Nav Sangha