Woman shot Friday in downtown tent city recovering with non life-threatening injuries

No arrest has been made in connection to an early-morning shooting Friday morning at the tent city encampment on the east side of downtown which left a woman in her mid-30s with a gunshot wound.

Police are still seeking witnesses who might be able to identify the shooter or who know details about the targeted attack which left the woman with non-life-threatening injuries.

“I do not have any updates on her current medical status,” said Prince George RCMP media relations officer Jennifer Cooper. “We’re not going to comment on (where she was hit by the bullet) in the media, just for investigation purposes. I’m not a medical professional, so I don’t want to comment on the seriousness of her injuries, (but) they were non-life-threatening.”

One person in the tent city who knew the female victim said Monday she was a quiet woman who kept to herself.

If you have any information, contact RCMP at 250-561-3300 or anonymously contact Crime Stoppers at 1 (800) 222-8477 or online at www.northernbccrimestoppers.ca. You do not have to reveal your identity. If you provide information that leads to an arrest or recovery of stolen property, you could be eligible for a cash reward.

“We’re keeping a tight rein on the information we do have because we don’t have much, so we’re hoping any witnesses or anybody who saw anything that evening or potentially the vehicle the suspect may have left in or how they may have left would be handy,” said Cooper.

“The witnesses at tent city were co-operative, but their varying states of intoxication being what they are, their recollection of events was a little bit haphazard, so we’re just looking for outside witnesses to provide information.”

The tent encampment is in a field below the berm of Patricia Boulevard east of the Fifth Avenue and Ottawa Street intersection and is on any given day is home to between 30 and 50 people who lack permanent shelters.

The transient people who come and go from the so-called “tent city” are believed by area residents of the nearby Millar Addition subdivision south of the encampment to be responsible for a rise in criminal activity in their residential neighbourhood.

“We had already stepped up patrols in that area prior to this event,” said Cooper. “That being said, the downtown area is vast and members can’t be there all the time.”

The residents are making a presentation to city council at tonight’s 6 p.m. meeting at city hall to voice their concerns and have the city follow through on its plan to have the tent city shut down. The city has applied through the courts to be granted that authority.