Baby On Board

Shortly after 3 p.m on December 13th, a 38 year old woman was shot dead while sitting in her car on Bruce Street in Southeast Vancouver. The woman’s car was not moving when the gunman or gunmen opened fire at the woman all while the victims toddler sat in the back seat. The victim died of multiple gun shot wounds making this murder the 14^th homicide of 2011 in Vancouver. Fortunately, the young child in the back seat was left unharmed during the attack. Police still have no leads to the gunman or men, and have added that “we want more witnesses to come forward.” Lindsey Houghton, Vancouver Police Const. said that “At this point, it appears to be targeted” and that “The child is in safe hands and has been taken to a safe place.” This crime however, does have very close relation to another murder in 2009 where a woman named Nicole Marie Alemy was shot dead in the front seat of her car. Her child was also left unharmed in the back seat, and it was shown that although Alemy had no criminal record to speak of, she did have several gang links. After the police arrived on scene, a woman named Arlene who has lived in that are for most of her life was interviewed and told officers that she thought the gun shots were firecrackers and that she had never seen anything like this before in her neighbourhood.

I think that violence like this is, as said by police Const. Houghton “completely unacceptable”. Murder is bad enough, but to do it during broad daylight in a public area, with a child in the back seat is just downright brutality. I hope that whoever committed this crime gets caught by police and sentenced to many, many deserving years in jail. I wish the best to the family of the victim, and especially to her toddler in the backseat who I hope was young enough not to completely take in the situation as it would be extremely traumatizing. I completely agree with what was said by Arlene, the woman interviewed by police, that “There are so many reports about things like this happening [but] it’s different when you’re right up close to it.”

The Province, "Woman shot dead in Southeast Vancouver with child in the back seat", Decemeber 14, 2011, By Andy Ivens and Ian Austin

Sources: http://www.theprovince.com/news/Woman+shot+dead+southeast+Vancouver+with+child+back+seat+vehicle/5861772/story.html