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Residents shaken after evening shooting sends man to Saint John hospital

A man is in the intensive care unit of the Saint John Regional Hospital after being shot Friday evening on Duke Street and people who live nearby say the gun violence has left them uneasy.

Officers with the Saint John Police Force found an injured man after responding to reports of shots fired around 8:30 p.m., Sgt. Jay Henderson said.

A second man was arrested shortly after and the major crime unit is continuing to investigate, he said.

Saturday morning, as sunshine brought people out of their homes, Greyson Middleton pointed out blood stains in front of his home to his neighbour Sheldon Bragg.

Middleton said he was just about to walk onto the street when he heard three gunshots.

"It happened quick, it happened fast," he said. "I heard buddy screaming on the ground over there, I didn't really know what to do, so I just went in the house, locked the door."

Theo Tolbart said he was walking home from the park with his niece and nephew when he heard the gunshots ring out. Tolbart said he grabbed the children and ran them through a backyard to get them inside.

With the kids safe, he went back out and saw the victim on the ground.

"He got hit three times in the leg, I'm pretty sure ... or twice in the leg and once in the hip," said Tolbart.

He said at that point the man was silent and was holding his head.

A former victim of gun violence, Tolbart said what stood out the most was the smell of fresh gunfire in the air. When he was a teenager, he said he was shot in the stomach and after each loud pop he hears, he waits for the smell of gunpowder.

Saturday Tolbart said he's not sure about how he feels about the neighbourhood.

"I'm in the south end, I couldn't live anywhere else but the south end," he said. "This is what I've been born into, so it's what I know."

Bragg said he found the shooting especially nerve-racking because his and other children were so close to it. The kids, he said, often gather to play on the sidewalk where the victim lay bleeding.

"I have a nine-month-old son, my friends all have kids that live on this street" he said. "What if it was during the middle of the day and our kids were outside?"