Two people are dead after a shooting at a home in Courtenay early this morning.
Comox Valley RCMP said they found a man and a woman dead in a home in the 2300-block of Urquhart Avenue around 3:10 a.m. after receiving reports of a shooting.
Police said two men were arrested at the home. One was shot and taken to hospital for treatment. The other is police custody. They are treating the deaths as homicides but charges are yet to be laid. Police said all the people involved knew each other.
“Around five after 3 a.m. I heard, ‘Bang, bang, bang.’ I thought someone was hitting the house with a baseball bat,” said an elderly neighbour who did not want to be named. She listened for a bit then went back to sleep.
The neighbour said a woman who looked to be in her 40s lived at the house and that it might be a rental. She did not think she was married or had a live-in partner.
“She hasn’t been in that house very long… But she worked in the day so I didn’t see her much,” said the neighbour, who thinks the woman’s mother also lives in the area.
Police are at the home and will remain there for several hours. Urquhart Avenue is closed off from 21st to 26th street for the investigation.
Shirley Werseen also lives near the bungalow home but said she did not know the tenants.
Werseen said the residential street is fairly quiet, “But it’s close to the school so there are lots of kids. … People move in and out because of the air base close by,” she said.
RCMP spokesman Const. Rob Gardner said they are still notifying the victims’ families and will provide further details later. He did not know how long the area would be blocked off.
“It could be a while. There are a lot of us (police) here,” he said. “We are interviewing neighbours and the forensic investigation team is here as well.”
