Two people are dead and two more were sent to hospital in London with injuries following a late-night shooting in the McCarthy Road/Bradshaw Drive area of Stratford Thursday night, and an eyewitness to the event detailed part of what she saw happen.
Kira Pedersen lives across the street from where the incident took place and stated that it began with an argument between neighbours that devolved quickly.
There was a dispute. “I saw the man go back to his home and got a gun, then he shot his neighbour twice before shooting himself.”
Pedersen reported that police arrived on scene in approximately five minutes, and she reported hearing more shots from the suspect’s backyard but was unclear as to what happened there.
“The argument started around 10:30 p.m., and then the shots came about 15 minutes later,” she said. “I know the (shooter) wasn’t in a good frame of mind.”
She added that arguments had been a frequent thing with the victim as he, in Pedersen’s words, ‘was the kind of guy that started shit with everybody’. And police had been called to the shooter’s residence multiple times previously, she said, sometimes two or three times in a weekend. She also said that the victim and his wife, who was wounded in the incident, had been escalating the arguments recently.
Stratford police issued a press release this morning indicating the initial call of a disturbance came in at approximately 10:45 p.m. Thursday, saying that multiple gunshots had been fired. Two of the four victims were transported to Victoria Hospital in London by ORNGE after being treated on scene by paramedics - one with life-threatening injuries and one with life-altering injuries.
The area where the incident occurred will remain closed throughout the day while police continue their investigation. Anyone in the area with video of the incident is asked to submit it to Stratford police here.
