Fredericton police release shooting scene
FREDERICTON Residents of the Fredericton apartment complex that was the scene of Friday’s deadly shooting spree are being allowed back into their homes, but many are already thinking about moving out.
Four people were gunned down at a four-building complex on Brookside Drive in the city’s north end.
Bobbie Lee Wright and Donnie Robichaud died in the shooting, along with responding officers Const. Robb Costello and Const. Sara Burns of Fredericton police.
Joseph Cartwright was at work that morning when he got the call from his girlfriend to say that there was gunfire and she and Cartwright’s four-year-old son were scared.
“I bolted from work. I couldn’t get any closer than the Tim Horton’s. I could hear the shots and I could see the apartment building but I couldn’t get here. As a parent that’s probably the worst feeling in the world, knowing there’s somebody shooting where your four-year-old son is,” Cartwright said Tuesday.
They were not in the same building as the shooter, but were only a few metres away. Police were able to get them safely out of harm’s way.
Cartwright said police kicked in the doors of a number of apartments in order to gain entry, but maintenance staff have since made repairs.
Other buildings still bear the scars of the tragedy. A window is smashed out in the third floor apartment where the shooter was located, while another window in that apartment has bullet holes.
A third floor apartment in another building on the other side of a small courtyard also has bullet holes through its windows, and one bullet hole in the wall.
Cartwright, 30, said he’s planning to move out.
“I can’t let my kid and my girlfriend be traumatized every time they come home ... I have to protect my family. That means getting out of here and getting them safe,” he said.
Calvin Cole and his girlfriend were in a basement apartment in the same building as the shooter when the shots were fired Friday.
He said they hid in the apartment and stayed put until police finally came to get them out.
Cole said it’s something he’ll never forget.
“It’s probably going to be on the mind for a while. It’s going to be fresh because it’s a rare occurrence here in Fredericton. It makes me concerned heavily about my neighbourhood,” he said.
Cole, 26, said he’s on subsidized housing and will move as soon as a new place can be found for him.
Another tenant, who didn’t want to be identified, said she was in a basement apartment in another building, and just stayed on the floor.
“The scariest time was when the shooting stopped,” she said. “You didn’t know when it was going to start again, or where it would be coming from.”
The Canadian Red Cross is concluding its emergency provision of lodging, meals and other support to residents who were displaced by the shooting.
Bill Lawlor, the New Brunswick director for the Red Cross, said residents are being advised to speak to counsellors and others as they return to their apartments.
“Many of these people, you have to remember, either heard or actually saw this happen. So it was a very traumatic experience for them on that day, and they now have to return to that very same scene,” he said.
Fredericton police say a regimental funeral “to celebrate the lives of our fallen members” will be held on Saturday at the University of New Brunswick.
An obituary for Burns said the 43-year-old mother of three boys fulfilled her lifelong dream of becoming a police officer three years ago, after more than 14 years as a stay-at-home mom.
“Not a day would go by when she didn’t say aloud, for everyone to hear, ‘I love my job,’” the obituary published on the McAdam’s Funeral Home website said.