After a night filled with loud Canada Day fireworks, residents of the Hazeldean neighborhood in south Edmonton woke up Saturday morning to more noise.
“Heard a loud car this morning, then a couple of bangs and that’s what woke me up,” said Hazeldean resident Will Mages.
“I heard these two knocks,” added another resident, Blaire Charbonneau. “I was waiting and listening if I could hear anything later.”
But Charbonneau didn’t, that’s because the loud explosions weren’t fireworks but gunshots.
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Mike Corpuz, who also lives in the neighborhood, said he saw what happened shortly after 6 a.m. through his doorbell camera.
“There was an altercation, a red truck parked across the street made a U-turn to head west and then someone came out (from the house next door),” Corpuz said.
Corpuz added that that’s when someone hit the red truck with an object.
“After that, I heard two shots,” Corpuz said. “I got out of bed, grabbed my daughters and went downstairs. I noticed that the window was broken and bullets entered my daughter’s room.”
Corpuz said a stray bullet entered through a glass bedroom window and another through the front door, fortunately missing him, his wife and three daughters.
“I was scared. First of all, I said, ‘Are my children okay, are they all okay? Okay, now come on, go downstairs, we can’t stay up here, we have to call the police,’” Corpuz said of his thought process during the incident.
Neighbors saw how EPS Tactical arrived at the house next to Corpuz.
“I just heard on speakerphone, the swat guys (saying), ‘Get out of your house, put your weapons down if you’re armed, put your weapons down otherwise we’re going in there,'” Charbonneau said.
Corpuz said the tactical team finally left after realizing no one was home.
Police said no one was injured and there is now no risk to the general public.
But that is little consolation for Corpuz and her neighbors who want more to be done so that something like this never happens in their neighborhood again.
“I couldn’t even imagine what we would have done if the shots came through our little girl’s room, I couldn’t imagine what that would feel like right now,” Charbonneau said.
“We just got shot, my son got shot,” Corpuz said.
Police said there are no suspects at this time. Police said a vehicle that was seen driving away from the area is being investigated.
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