Residents in a Blackfalds, Alta., neighbourhood say they are shaken by what happened in their community Wednesday morning.

What started as a firearms call in Blackfalds around 8:15 a.m.t, ended with one person dead and two others — including one RCMP officer — seriously injured, after gunfire rang out alongside the QEII south of Edmonton hours later.

Residents in Blackfalds said they heard shots being fired Wednesday morning. Then, three women ran out the home where the shooting began. They first went across the street to a neighbour’s house, before eventually ending up at Bob Howell’s home. He lives a few doors down from where the women fled.

“There was a hell of a bang… I don’t know what it was. It was loud,” Howell said Thursday.

“They come runnin’ down the street and I knew something was wrong. So I said, ‘You better come in here.’”

Howell said the women told them the boyfriend of one of the women shot at the TV and the wall. They called 911 and ran from the house, across the street to another neighbour’s place. That’s when RCMP arrived on scene and shots were fired at a police vehicle.

Pictures from the scene show several shots hit the driver’s side windshield of the police vehicle.

“When they shot the window, I was watching out and they had to duck out of the way,” Howell said.

Howell said the women didn’t tell him what prompted the violence in the first place, but said they were shaken.

A section of the QEII near the Highway 2A exit was closed in both directions until shortly after 6 p.m. Wednesday while RCMP conducted their investigation.

The RCMP is now asking anyone who captured dash cam video of any part of the incident to bring it in on a USB to the Blackfalds RCMP detachment at 4405 South St.

Officers are specifically interested in any footage that captured a black, four-door BMW sedan from 8:15 a.m. to 9:45 a.m. on Wednesday in the following areas:

• Town of Blackfalds
• Highway 2A between Blackfalds and Lacombe
• Highway 2 (QEII) between Lacombe and Leduc

The RCMP continues to investigate.

The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team has taken over the investigation into the officers’ actions and said it hopes to have further information to release later this week. ASIRT investigates incidents involving Alberta’s police that result in serious injury or death to any person, as well as serious or sensitive allegations of police misconduct.

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