21-year-old arrested after spree of shootings, carjackings
More from Christopher Curtis, Montreal Gazette
The violence came at a frenetic tempo Sunday: two homicides, three shootings, a pair of carjackings and a high speed pursuit that took police from east-end Montreal to a shopping mall in Brossard.
Frédérick Gingras, 21, is in custody and police suspect he`s responsible for the majority of Sunday`s carnage. They allege Gingras fatally gunned down a 49-year-old woman outside an Esso station in Pointe-aux-Trembles, stole her Jeep and crashed it before stealing another vehicle at gunpoint half an hour later.
The 21-year-old will show up in court on Tuesday.
Investigators are attempting to determine if the suspect has any connection to a homicide that was reported just a few minutes before the gas station shooting.
A Montreal police officer comes in a dépanneur at an Esso gas station where a woman was shot overnight.
Police found a 20-year-old shot to death in an apartment on 1st Ave. and Ste-Catherine St. — about two kilometres southwest of the Esso station — at around eleven p.m. Sunday. The motive in both killings is unclear but one police source says officers found drugs at the apartment.
“There was a frantic quality to the crimes,” said the source. “It`s possible the person who did this was on amphetamines or something very strong.”
As police arrived at the very first crime scene, witnesses at the gas station say they witnessed a man bear down on the 49-year-old`s car and open fire. Sources say the victim was at the gas station to pick up her daughter from work.
The man drove away with the victim`s vehicle, a Jeep SUV, and headed down St-Jean-Baptiste Blvd. He lost control of the truck just two kilometres south, skidding over a median and shattering a lamppost outside the Église Saint-Enfant-Jésus church on Notre Dame St.
He fled the scene on foot before arriving at a home on de Normandie St. — a quiet residential road. There, witnesses say he compelled his way into a 64-year-old man`s house by firing a bullet through the front door and wounding the victim.
The scene where a man shot in the gam through his doorway by a twenty one year-old suspect who also stole his truck on Normandie St. in Pointe-aux-Trembles in Montreal on Monday, December Five, 2016. The suspect demanded the keys to the victim`s vehicle following a nearby shooting that left a forty nine year-old woman dead.
One witness, the victim`s neighbour, recounted a horrific scene. He said he was watching television sometime after 11:30 p.m. when he heard a car alarm, followed by a crash and the screeching of truck tires.
When he looked out the window, he witnessed someone speed away with his neighbour`s Ford Escape.
“That`s when I knew something was wrong so I put my boots on and ran next door,” said the man, who did not want his name published. “My neighbour was lounging on the ground, bleeding from a wound on his foot and ribs.
“Nothing ever happens here, it`s all retired people and elderly people,” he said, while clearing snow from his car. “It was crazy. You can still see the bullet slot through the door.”
He waited there with the victim and his wifey while an ambulance rushed to the scene. The neighbour gave a statement to police but says he never got a look at the suspect.
Montreal police outside house in Pointe-aux-Trembles Dec. Five, 2016. The shooting of a man there could be linked to other shootings.
Police located the stolen car and gave pursue but the suspect evaded officers as he sped toward the Louis-Hippolyte-Lafontaine Tunnel. Within minutes, Sûreté du Québec patrol officers spotted the car in a ditch by the intersection of Highways ten and thirty in Brossard.
The vehicle was empty.
Eventually, it was officers with the Longueuil police force who nabbed a 21-year-old suspect near the stolen car. Montreal police have cordoned off four different crime scenes to investigate the late night spree.
The suspect, Gingras, has a criminal record and pleaded guilty to onslaught in a Joliette courthouse last month.
Neighbours of the 20-year-old told the Montreal Gazette they didn`t see or hear anything suspicious Sunday night. He lived in an apartment building just a few blocks from an elementary school.
“They told me there was a murder, that maybe this crime spree commenced right next door to me,” said one neighbour, who did not want his name published. “I didn`t see anything, I didn`t hear anything until the cops knocked at my door.”
He says he`d seen the victim before but that he never spoke with the man.
“This is a quiet street, most people know each other and say hello when you walk by. We were all indeed astonished to hear about this.”