Responding to a service call, Yellowknife RCMP found a man suffering from a gunshot wound early Sunday morning in a downtown apartment building on 53 Street.
An ambulance brought the man to Stanton Territorial Hospital, where he received treatment. The injury was non-life threatening, according to a police news release.
K-9 unit and forensic services were at the scene, and the evidence gathered suggests it was an “isolated incident,” according to Mounties.
The news release asks that anyone who witnessed the incident or was in the area of 53 Street and 50 Avenue between midnight and 1 a.m. last Sunday contact the RCMP.
The apparent early morning shooting follows reports from downtown residents who say they heard gunshots in the same area earlier this week.
'Very loud bang,’ rattled residents report ‘gunshot’ sounds downtown
Caitlin Lacey said she's used to hearing the odd loud noise from outside her downtown apartment in Yellowknife.
But on the night of May 22 a series of unusually loud sounds left her rattled.
“It was a very loud bang. I jumped out of bed and looked out the window immediately,” Lacey told Yellowknifer on May 23.
It sounded like a gunshot, she said.
Lacey, who lives on 52 Street, heard the loud bang, which sounded like it came from the 53 Street area, just after 11 p.m.
About 10 minutes later, she heard another loud bang.
“My cat flew like three feet in the air,” she recalled. “I can’t say for sure if it was. I just know I’ve heard lots of loud noises in the back alley, out in the street, but it definitely wasn’t a car backfire. Definitely not fireworks.”
Lacey said she’s also heard people deploying “bear bangers” to scare away unwanted animals in the area. This was different, she said.
Lacey wasn’t the only downtown resident who reported hearing gunshots that night.
After immediately taking to Facebook to share her account — “Um did I just hear a gunshot??!,” she asked — another resident said they’d heard the same sounds.
“We heard them, too!,” they wrote on Lacey’s post. “Not sure what it was.”
“Anyone else hear (three) gunshots last night?,” asked another Yellowknifer in a Facebook post made on the morning of May 23.
“Yep,” commented one Facebook user.
“Yes,” wrote another.
Lacey, who didn’t see or hear anyone outside following the loud bangs, said she didn’t hear any sirens or police activity following the disturbance on May 22, either.
Yellowknife RCMP did not receive any complaints following the unsubstantiated online reports, a spokesperson confirmed.