Abbotsford Police are conducting video surveillance of a neighbourhood that was the site of two drive-by shootings in 18 months.
Two signs declare "area under video surveillance." They are on two telephone poles on either side of a rural property in the 2500 block of Bradner Road, just north of Simpson Road.
Abbotsford Police Const. Ian MacDonald said well-hidden video cameras were installed in the area about two weeks ago.
"Our primary mandate is public safety, and we're going to use every tool at our disposal to ensure public safety," he said.
The first shooting occurred in January 2011, when eight to 12 shots were fired as a 25-year-old woman driving a pickup pulled into a driveway in that area. One shot blew out the back window of the truck, narrowly missing the woman's head, while another went through the living room window of the house.
Police said two male residents of the house – ages 21 and 27 at the time – were well-known to police.
The second shooting was on Sept. 4 of this year, when a 24-year-old man suffered a gunshot wound to his arm. The victim had been in a Ford SUV along Bradner Road with an unknown number of people when the vehicle was shot at several times.
The man was treated in hospital and released.
MacDonald said although no suspects have been charged in connection with the incidents, police have some solid leads and have gathered "a fair amount of evidence."
He said this is the first time that police have installed video cameras in a neighborhood since October 2008, when they were set up along Strathcona Court, where the Bacon family lived at the time.
Brothers Jarrod, Jamie and Jonathan – members of the Red Scorpions gang – were the targets of a murder plot at the time. Police said they installed the cameras to protect the neighborhood and prevent violence.
Jonathon was killed in a drive-by shooting in Kelowna in August 2011, and Jarrod is currently serving a 12-year sentence for a drug-conspiracy conviction. Jamie is in prison awaiting trial in the Surrey Six slayings.
Their parents no longer reside in Abbotsford.
The name of one of the men connected to the Bradner Road home that was shot at in January 2011 came up in court proceedings earlier this year during Jarrod Bacon's drug conspiracy trial.
The Crown alleged the man, a longtime friend of Bacon's, was whom Bacon was referring to, on wiretap evidence, when he said he had a funder who could supply to up $3 million to purchase cocaine from Mexico.