This past Thursday, at 5am, a shooting had occurred between two vehicles. The shots were fired from a black SUV. Nearly 10 minutes later, just 5 kilometers from the first scene, another vehicle was targeted in the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough of the city. A little after the second shooting, residents of Rosemont heard a loud bang near Saint-Zotique street, followed by an onslaught of police sirens. With a resume of events like this, we can be sure there are many unanswered questions, this article is aimed to answer those questions.
At around 5am on this past Thursday morning, a 41 year old man had gotten into his car, a Mazda sedan, and started heading to work. Not even a minute into his journey, a Toyota RAV4 SUV, had pulled up on the drivers side of the sedan, and started firing shots in its direction. The driver targeted, had only attained a gunshot to his left shoulder, the SUV sped of after firing it’s flurry of shots, heading towards the west of the city.
The driver of the Mazda sedan was then rushed to a hospital. He did not suffer any life-threatening injuries. His 60-some year old mother had proclaimed to the news on how she had been happy he survived, and that her birthday was just a couple days away, and how it was a “nice birthday gift that he was still alive”. The occupants of the two vehicles did not know each other, and the victim was not known by authorities.
Just a few minutes later, five kilometers from the initial scene, another vehicle was targeted by the same SUV, the victim was a 58 year old man, once again, headed to work. This second incident had occurred on the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough of the city, a borough neighboring the Rosemont sector. It happened near the intersection of Boulevard Saint-Joseph and Henri-Julien Avenue. The 58 year old man in this case, was not attained by projectiles, resulting in no one injured.
Moments after, we know that the SUV had been targeted by squad cars, lighting their sirens on and taking chase. The black SUV headed east, back to Boulevard Pie-IX in the Rosemont borough. While speeding away on a bike path on Saint-Zotique Street, the black SUV violently crashed head-on into a tree, immediately killing the driver, who had been recessed in the tree. Policed sirens were heavy, with officers pointing their guns at the vehicle and hollering orders at them. the passenger was soon rushed to the hospital, but later died of his injuries. Police found the gun that was used in both crime scenes in the vehicle. The shocking bit; both suspects were in their teens. The driver, 16, and the passenger, 14, both deceased.
Were these targeted shootings? Or simply intimidation? Had one of the suspects gone haywire mentally and decided to aim their sights on random people? We now know the driver of the suspected vehicle had claimed the STL street gang on social media. Authorities suspect both shootings have been a result of gang ‘scoring’; an action in which a gang frequents their opposition’s area in hopes to shooting or killing opposing gang members.
STL is a street gang found in the Saint-Leonard borough of Montreal. They align themselves with the color red, claiming allegiance the the ‘Bloods’ street gang. They are located in the east boroughs of the city. They take their initials for the Saint-Leonard borough and have a slew of rappers being on their roster. The most known member being Enima, who has had a heavy criminal past with the authorities. Other members that are rappers being; VT STL who just recently dropped his first music video, Nito STL, Gutta 192, KBG Gwap, Mekra and Timak.
