‘I’m so sad’
Mourners gather to honour dead,
Just twelve hours after a shooting that shocked the city of Fredericton, more than 100 people packed into a local church Friday night to mourn the victims.
St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church is less than a kilometre away from the site of a shooting that took the lives of four people.
Donnie Robichaud, 42, was the male civilian victim, according to his cousin and best friend, Sean Callahan, CBC reported. The shooting also claimed the lives of police officers Lawrence Robert Costello and Sara Burns, and a female civilian who had not been identified publicly.
Citizens of the small New Brunswick city gathered at the church to sing hymns, sit in silent prayer and light candles.
“I’m so sad,” said Mei Yong, who brought her two-year-old son, Nova Lin, to the vigil.
Yong said she was there to show her support to Fredericton police, who helped her in a time of personal need. Even though she didn’t know the two officers who were killed, she said she was grieving with those who did.
Two civilians were also killed in the early morning shooting, but their names had not yet been released.
Fredericton is a city of less than 60,000, and its residents are close and tightly connected.
One of those residents, retired United Church minister Brian DeLong, began getting calls just after 4 p.m.
Police had just released the names of the officers — the first to respond to the call — who had been fatally shot, and people were badly rattled by the news. One of the victims, Const. Burns, was the daughter-in-law of two members of his congregation.
“People from my congregation called me and said, ‘Did you know?’ ” DeLong said before the vigil.
He rushed to join the vigil at St. John the Evangelist, where he read a scripture in dedication to Burns’ family, and all those grieving.
The vigil was open to the whole community, its doors propped open to let in the evening breeze as the sun began to set.
Fans moved the air around in the small gym where people gathered, but it remained hot after another stifling summer day. After the vigil, some made their way towards the scene of the shooting.
Several blocks around the site of the shooting remained blocked off by police and New Brunswick RCMP on Friday evening, with several officers and a forensic investigation vehicle parked outside a four-building apartment complex at 237 Brookside Dr., where the shooting occurred.
Apparent bullet holes were visible in a second-storey window of one of the buildings at the complex.
“It’s unbelievable in Fredericton,” Yong said. “It’s safe here, it’s not Toronto, so I just can’t believe it.”
“It’s unbelievable in Fredericton. It’s safe here ... so I just can’t believe it.”
MEI YONG
MOURNER