‘I was looking down the barrel of the gun pretty much, and then I started trying to get people out of the way in case he started shooting,’ witness says
Police reopened Dunlop Street just before noon on Sunday following an overnight downtown Barrie shooting.
A witness described the chaotic events that unfolded just before a 30-year-old Barrie man was taken to a Toronto-area trauma centre in serious but stable condition, after being shot just before 3 a.m.
Police say they were called at approximately 2:45 a.m. to Dunlop Street East, between Owen and Mulcaster streets, due to a report of an altercation that had taken place outside a downtown night club.
Police released images of a male suspect who was involved in the shooting; they are seeking assistance from the public to identify the suspect from the images provided.
At 12:45 p.m. on Sunday, police communications co-ordinator Jennett Mays said the investigation remains ongoing and no new information is currently available to the public.
A local man who said he witnessed the shooting was left traumatized by the incident.
“I panicked, but I was more worried about everybody else,” said John, who declined to have his last name published.
The 50-year-old said there seemed to be around 100 people milling around outside one of the bars on Dunlop Street West after they closed.
“They all streamed outside. And then after the gunfire went off, the bouncer from The Queens nightclub opened the door and allowed a bunch of us to run back inside,” John said.
Just prior to the shooting, John said the man who was shot was standing near the doorway of Philthy Philly’s Cheesesteaks and Poutinerie, next to The Queens.
Police released photos of the suspect in a shooting on Dunlop Street East, between Owen and Mulcaster streets, which occurred around 2:45 a.m. Sunday morning. A 30-year-old man suffered serious injuries in the shooting. Barrie Police Service photo
“And then he was arguing with a light-skinned guy with a black jacket, and then that guy stepped back a few feet and pulled the gun out waist high,” he said.
John said he was behind the victim when the suspect initially pulled out a gun and pointed it at the man.
“I was looking down the barrel of the gun pretty much, and then I started trying to get people out of the way in case he started shooting,” he said. “And then (the suspect’s) friends grabbed (him) and they ran east on Dunlop Street.”
John described a brief fight starting between “a few girls … and then shortly after, heard a loud pop, sounding like a gun — it sounded like it was muffled, like a firework.”
John said the amount of time between the gun first being pulled out and the gun being fired was approximately three to five minutes.
“He had the gun out, and he was kind of threatening them, I guess,” John said. “He brandished a gun to show him that, ‘hey, I’m like a gangster or something like that. Get the fuck back.’
“I was trying to get people to hide behind a brick wall, away from the line of fire. And then, like I said, a couple girls started fighting, and then you heard the pop,” he said.
After that, panic ensued, according to John, with multiple people witnessing the shooting; in aftermath, several girls could be seen sitting on a street corner “crying their eyes out.”
John said he then approached a woman he learned was the victim’s fiancé.
“I had to hold her back, so the paramedics and the police could do the work that they needed to do,” he said. “I tried to get them to calm down, because they needed to do the work to save his life.”
John said he watched a police officer put a bandage on the front of the victim’s wound and the exit wound in his back. Shortly after that, an ambulance arrived to transport the man to a local hospital.
John said he then took the victim’s fiancée and their friends to Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH).
“I stayed with them there for a bit, until the young man’s parents arrived,” he said.
Police said in a news release earlier this morning that the incident was isolated, and “police do not believe there is a risk to public safety at this time.”
Police have asked that anyone with information to please contact the major crime unit investigators at 705-725-7025 ext. 2160.