Friday, 30 April 2010
Gerald Gauthier
LETHBRIDGE HERALD
ggauthier@lethbridgeherald.com
A northside shooting range has reopened and will be allowed to stay where it is now that a police investigation has ruled it out as the source of a stray bullet that damaged a parked minivan in a nearby neighbourhood.
Lethbridge regional police announced Friday that all evidence indicates the wayward bullet was most likely fired April 10 from grasslands north of Hardieville where signs along roads and trails have apparently been used for target practice. The shot appeared to have ricocheted off the pavement before hitting the metal door frame of a Dodge Caravan in the 100 block of Stafford Road North, according to police.
The slug from a .30-calibre rifle was found on the driveway among shards of glass from a side window that was shattered by the impact.
Mayor Bob Tarleck said Friday the shooting range, operated by the Lethbridge Fish and Game Society in the riverbottom just west of Stafford Village, was being reopened immediately. The range had been closed since April 19 when city council ordered it shut down pending the results of the police investigation into the incident.
“Clearly, the greatest danger we’re facing is not from the shooting range, which has adopted very stringent controls over the operation,” said Tarleck. “I think the greater danger is from informal ranges where people are going out into the coulees and doing some shooting.”
The city’s actions in closing the range were “unfortunate but necessary,” he said.
Police ruled out the gun range after reviewing video footage and finding no evidence of anyone firing a shot carelessly. Ranger users who were on site the day of the incident were also questioned.
Based on the northeast trajectory of shots fired at the range, there’s no way the shot could have caromed at an angle sharp enough to reach the driveway where the van was parked, which is southeast of the range, said Insp. Colin Catonio.
The results of the investigation show police patrols need to be stepped up in the parks and green space where the uncontrolled shooting has been taking place, he said.
Investigators also found dead wildlife in parkland north and northwest of the Stafford Village and Legacy Ridge areas, and rural landowners reported trespassers are a frequent problem.
Even though the shooting range isn’t implicated in the incident, Tarleck said it may eventually be time to look for a more remote location for the facility, which operates on land leased from the city in Peenaquim Park.
“We need to continue to examine that. I don’t want to say we’re going to move that range tomorrow or even next year, but clearly we need to look at whether the range can exist in the proximity of a residential area,” he said. "I think we need to consider carefully the efforts (the society) has made, but in the long term — I don’t know when, but at some point — I think we’re going to be looking for another location.”
While acknowledging the lengths to which range operators have gone to ensure bullets can’t go astray, he said that if the city were to establish a (shooting) range now, it wouldn’t be located so close to a residential area.
Allan Friesen, range manager, said the findings confirm the society’s steadfast assertion that the range is safe and doesn’t pose a danger to residents of nearby neighbourhoods.
“If there are ways, in working with the city and the police, that we can improve the safety at that facility, we will. But it exceeds all federal requirements and is an entirely safe facility,” he said. “If the city is interested in relocating, certainly we’ll work with them to do so, but that range is entirely safe.”
According to police, guns that accommodate .30-calibre ammunition are mass-produced and are inexpensive to purchase. Shells typically travel at a velocity of 2,300 feet per second when fired. Investigators estimated the slug was travelling at several hundred feet per second when it hit the van.
Sharla Kerr, the owner of the van that was struck by the bullet, said she’s satisfied with the decision to keep the range open.
“I don’t have an issue with the shooting range. I have an issue that someone else was careless,” she said.
Just went out to my deck to listen to hear if anyone was using the range yet, all is quiet. Am glad that the range is reopening after the evidence was pointing to the bullet coming from else where.
Lethbridge Range
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