Calgary weekend mall shootings ‘shocking,’ but not connected: police
Posted Aug 15, 2023 3:55 pm.
Shocking, brazen shootings — that’s how Calgary police describe the two shootings that took place in the city over the weekend.
Both happened in the parking lots of malls, one late Friday at Deerfoot City, the other at 2 pm on Saturday at Calgary’s busy Market Mall.
Calgary police confirmed the shootings were not connected.
“They are known to police and they are known to each other and they are targeted. What gang group they would be associated with is still under investigation,” said Supt. Corey Dayley as a press conference on Monday.
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Saturday afternoon’s shooting in the parking lot of Market Mall was the city’s 12th homicide of the year. The victim has been identified at 23-year-old Danny Truong.
Shootings in Calgary are down 30 per cent compared to 2022’s record amount of gun violence, but police say the organized crime landscape is shifting into new territory.
“What we are seeing is a lot of the lower level crime that we’ll see in the city or across Canada isn’t as connected in the hierarchy to traditional lower level crime as it once was and it’s a lot more fluid,” said Dayley. “It can chance on a dime in the organized crime landscape. There’s a lot of internal conflicts, loyalties aren’t what they once were.
Mount Royal justice studies Professor Doug King says the shooting that took place at the mall on a busy Saturday afternoon is incredibly unusual.
“It spoke to a degree of anger, revenge, spontaneity, all that kind of stuff,” he said.
The victim was shot while sitting in the front seat of his vehicle. There’s various cameras and tons of witnesses in the area who could have been in the way if a shot went wide.
“It’s going to make Calgarians even more angry about gun violence and worry about their safety,” King added.
Dashcam footage is being requested from anyone in the area of Market Mall around 2:19 p.m., as well as video from the area of the Side Street Pub and Grill at Kensington Crescent NW between 2 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 9 and 12 p.m. on Thursday, Aug 10.
A third shooting in as many days happened in the northeast Monday night, near a Denny’s restaurant on McKnight Blvd and Edmonton Trail/4 Street.
Calgary police have confirmed the subjects are known to each other and that the incident was targeted.
Investigators say the three incidents are not connected to each other.
Questions raised about public notification
Market Mall wasn’t placed on lockdown amidst the deadly incident, leaving those inside the building with little information about what was going on outside and raising questions about what is proper policy.
“We didn’t even know anything happened, but an hour after everything had happened, my manager phoned the store asking if we were all OK because she had seen it on the news,” said a woman, that was working at the mall at the time, who asked not to be identified.
WATCH: Calgary’s Market Mall employees say they weren’t told about deadly shooting in parking lot
Cadillac Fairview, the company behind the mall, declined to comment and referred CityNews to police.
Mount Royal University Criminologist Kelly Sundberg says there are some reasons why police and security may delay informing the public.
“There’s a number of possible reasons, one is they’re engaged in the investigation, another would be that they’re observing that they’re observing and trying to ascertain what happened,” he explained. “The delay, I think, is reasonable, considering the severity of the offence.”
Daley was asked at a news conference Monday whether or not businesses should be more prepared for such incidents.
“I can’t speak to the relationship between police and Market Mall specifically, but I know we have a good relationship with all of our businesses in Calgary and if any business feels like they need more Calgary is here to provide exactly that, whether it’s emergency response planning or incident response planning,” he said.
Sundberg adds he doesn’t find the response at Market Mall unreasonable or negligent.
“The threat had passed and the police were engaged in their investigation and I think the communication did come, slower than some people want I guess, but nevertheless, I don’t see it as unreasonable,” he said.
