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Southern Alberta police officers are diving into investigations after they say someone drove past a supervised consumption facility and allegedly shot paintballs at staff and clients.
Investigators released surveillance footage captured shortly after midnight on Saturday morning that showed a white pickup truck outside of the Lethbridge facility.
According to Jill Manning the site’s director of operations, a staff member was hit multiple times by paint-filled pellets in the throat, chest, torso and leg.
Two clients were also hit and while Manning says no one was seriously injured, the staff member did receive noticeable cuts and bruising.
Manning says this is not the first incident to occur at the site since its opening a year and a half ago.
Following a Lethbridge City Council meeting on Monday, which saw councillors vote down a motion calling for the Alberta government to pull the facilities funding, staff of the site have received several threats both in-person and online.
The motion was brought forward by Lethbridge councillor Blaine Hyggen, who claimed there was drug use and drug dealing outside of the site, adding that he was opposed to enabling addicts to consume illegal drugs.
However, the city’s mayor Chris Spearman challenged Hyggen, saying his accusations couldn’t be backed up by fact, and the motion was defeated 6−3.
"This is the first physical assault, but certainly we’ve had verbal assaults. We’ve had staff filmed and provoked in arguments and then posted on social media," said Manning. "We certainly have had growing concerns throughout the week, right now I’m a little shook."
Const. Ryan Darroch with the Lethbridge Police Service confirmed there were several victims of the paintball attack, however, he couldn’t confirm that the drug consumption site was targeted.
According to Darroch, it appeared that the truck that drove around the facility was not moving that quickly and that whoever was firing the paintballs seemed to be shooting them at random.
Police are investigating an assault with a weapon after paintballs were fired from a moving vehicle at several people outside the Supervised Consumption Site. No injuries were sustained. Info? Call police 403-328-4444. #yql https://t.co/UehVoSZ5ql pic.twitter.com/4ep7HswOBT
— Lethbridge Police (@lethpolice) August 24, 2019
"There were several people we could tell from the video camera that had been struck, and several others that ducked behind cars and hid as the shots rang past them," said Darroch.
"It looked like the majority of the shots that were fired had missed."
While police were unable to obtain the vehicles license plate, they are listing the white Dodge truck as a suspect vehicle.
As a result of the alleged attack, Manning says the Lethbridge facility will likely beef up their security.
Adding that she believes it’s just a fringe group that is responsible for the threats, stressing they’re not representative of most people in the community, including those who oppose supervised drug consumption services.
"I don’t know that people understand that what they may feel are benign comments on social media, whips up the fervour that is occurring in our community right now," said Manning.
"I would just really ask that people in Lethbridge be conscious of how they’re contributing to public discussions around this because things are escalating and we fear that things will get worse."
— With files from The Canadian Press
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