Drive-by shootings, arsons have residents on edge
FREDERIC SERRE
The 1510 West
Four drive-by shootings since July. A bullet-riddled garage door. Arson attacks. A parked car, set ablaze. Residents terrified. Increased police patrols. Neighbours installing security cameras.
This is not a crime-riddled inner-city district. This is peaceful, residential Kirkland – more specifically, Beaubois Street, near Timberlea Trail, an area better known for family barbecues and parents walking their kids to school.
Since July, however, Beaubois Street has attracted intense attention from police, most recently on Oct. 28, when a gunman fired at a house for a second time in just a few months.
According to Montreal police, since late July, there have been four attacks on three homes on Beaubois, a quiet U-shaped street in Kirkland’s northern Timberlea area. No injuries have been reported, police said.
“We are living in hell,” said one resident who asked not to be identified. “Several neighbours here are scared of stray bullets. That’s what we’re all worried about.”
The bullets that ripped through the garage door of one house shortly before midnight on Oct. 28 is the same residence where an incendiary device was thrown against the garage door on Aug. 10, said Montreal police spokeswoman Véronique Dubuc. In the most recent attack, Dubuc said, witnesses saw a vehicle slow down as someone inside the vehicle opened fire on the residence, before they fled along Timberlea Trail.
According to police, the couple who lives there reported they never received any threats and are as puzzled as investigators about why anyone would want to harm them.
To add to the mystery, a car parked in the driveway of a nearby residence was set ablaze on the night of July 28. Sixteen days later, on Aug. 13, someone fired shots into the garage door of another residence.
Officers from Montreal police Station 1 have increased patrols in the area, and during a community meeting last summer, residents were told the incidents might be related, but authorities urged calm, saying police are doing what they can to solve the crisis.
According to Lise Labrosse, a spokesperson for the Town of Kirkland, a meeting was held recently by Station 1 officials, the mayor and general manager, as well as residents of Beaubois Street to discuss the growing number of incidents. According to Labrosse, the town has installed brighter street lights to increase visibility.
One resident, who also asked to remain anonymous, said that despite the tension in the area, “we don’t want to worry about it too much, but what the owners of the (targeted residence) must be living is horrible and difficult – but we’re trying our best to continue living our lives.”