‘Always in fear’: Residents hope for calm after shooting at downtown Kamloops boarding house

One person is in hospital after a shooting at a rooming house in downtown Kamloops.

Police have the scene in the 600 block of Battle Street locked down while the seriously-wounded victim was picked up by paramedics from a nearby convenience store.

Kamloops RCMP said the extent of the unnamed victim’s injuries isn’t known.

The shooting appears to have been isolated to one of the units. Police are not allowing residents of the rooming house back inside as the investigation continues. 

“I’m always in fear,” one of the residents told iNFOnews.ca.

She wasn’t home when the shooting took place around 1 a.m. Thursday, June 19, but she returned to find police had the building evacuated as a crime scene.

“Now that this has happened, I’m hoping the RCMP and the city will hold them more accountable for what’s going on back there,” she said. “Bylaws comes and they have been more frequently a lot more with the stolen bikes and the chop shop, but it’s gotten worse and worse. All these poor neighbours, they’re tired of it.”

The victim is in hospital after reaching a nearby convenience store and collapsing while looking for help, according to a 7-Eleven employee.

Another resident, Sean Hewitt, said he lives next door to the rear suite where the shooting is believed to have taken place. Each unit is bachelor suite, but the neighbouring unit frequently has up to a dozen people.

He claimed drugs are sold out of the home and there is heavy traffic at night and hopes the recent shooting will see an end to that activity.

“I’m hoping the system will put the drug dealers away for good,” he said.

Hewitt heard the gunshot but wasn’t sure at the time what it was. When more than a dozen officers showed up to the scene and told residents to evacuate, he wasn’t sure they were referring to him until they arrived at his door.

He was made to crawl toward police in the alley until they could handcuff him, although he said he wasn’t involved and wasn’t initially aware why police were there.

“I knew they wanted to get everyone out of there, and if they had to confront the one who did it, they would do it with a clean conscience,” Hewitt said.

Hewitt and two others from in the boarding house were held inside a city bus for hours as police questioned the home’s occupants.

Late Thursday morning, he stood outside the house hoping police would let him inside.

Officers guarding the scene, however, wouldn’t let anyone return. No police officers were going inside either. While unclear, it appeared they may have been waiting for a warrant to investigate inside.

Not much is known about what led to the shooting incident.

“Although the investigation is ongoing, current evidence suggests this incident was not random,” Kamloops RCMP Staff Sgt. Kelly Butler said in a news release.