Face of Nation : Vehicles are again being hit by falling objects on boulevard Riel in Gatineau, Que.’s central Mont-Bleu neighbourhood, and police are still looking for leads.
Starting in February, Gatineau police received several complaints about vehicles being hit by rocks or ice in the evenings near the intersection of Riel and boulevard Cité-des-Jeunes, where there’s an eight-storey apartment building and a strip mall.
Étienne Corneau said his car was pelted with crushed gravel back then, and that late last month it was hit with something bigger while he was inside it.
“I heard a loud bang on the side of my car … It was so loud I thought my car had serious damage,” he said in a telephone interview Sunday.
Corneau said he saw what looked like shards of glass next to the vehicle after the incident, but couldn’t make out what it was. Whatever it was, it seemed heavy.
He’s been told it will cost more than $1,000 to fix the dents and scrapes to the window frame and side of his car.
But he has more than the financial cost on his mind.
“If my girlfriend was beside me on the passenger seat and her window was open she could really get hurt,” he said.
“Mostly I go there to get my daughter from her grandma. If she was in the backseat and she got [hit with] some kind of object like that, she could be injured.”
Police said no injuries have been reported and no arrests have been made. Their active investigation has stalled and they’re looking for new leads to try to find who’s responsible, said police spokesperson Const. Andrée East on Friday.
As for Corneau, he said he doesn’t want to stop visiting his grandmother or friends in the area, but he and his girlfriend are taking different routes whenever possible.
“I have friends there, I have family there and I don’t feel comfortable asking myself if I need to go there, because I don’t feel safe,” he said.
“There’s a problem with that.”
