Three people are dead following an incident in Maple Ridge, B.C., overnight.
RCMP said that officers were called to reports of a neighbourhood dispute on 239th Street and 118A Avenue earlier on Wednesday, at approximately 6:40 p.m.
Police officers from the Ridge Meadows RCMP spoke with several people but no arrests were made, police confirmed.
Then, at approximately 10:51 p.m., the Maple Ridge Fire Department reported to police that a vehicle was on fire and a break-and-enter was in progress at a home in the same location.
Callers to 911 also reported that shots had been fired at that home.
When Ridge Meadows RCMP arrived back on the scene, police said they found two vehicles and the attached garage on fire, along with two people and a dog dead inside that home. They have been identified as a man and a woman in their 60s.
The suspect was believed to be armed with a weapon inside a neighbouring home and police set up a containment zone, RCMP said.
The Lower Mainland Integrated Emergency Response Team was called in and eventually gained entry to the second home where another person was reportedly found dead, police said.
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The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT) is investigating the death of the two people found inside the first home, police added.
The Independent Investigations Office of B.C., which investigates police-involved incidents, said officers have been called in.
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Two burned-out vehicles sit in front of one of the houses that is behind police tape on Thursday morning.
Rick lives next door to the home where the two people were found dead.
He said they had lived there since the neighbourhood was built – about 25 years.
“They’ve been just great neighbours, great people,” he said.
He added that his neighbours had called a bylaw officer previously over what sounded like a parking dispute but he said he didn’t know the extent of any conflict between the suspect and victims.
“They have kids and grandchildren,” Rick added, about his neighbours.
IHIT confirmed in an update that, based on initial investigative steps, investigators believe this to be a targeted and isolated incident, as a result of a dispute between neighbours who were known to each other.
Neighbour Allen Deacon-Carriere was asleep and told Global News that his girlfriend woke him up around 10:45 p.m. on Wednesday, saying she had heard a gunshot.
“After that, I woke up and I heard five more similar-sounding gunshots,” he said.
Deacon-Carriere then said he heard a woman screaming for someone to call 911, which he did, and when he ran downstairs, he looked out the window and saw a car on fire.
He is a mechanic, so he knew one of the cars was about to explode, Deacon-Carriere explained.
“Then the police came and the two cars blew up, and it was just really crazy,” he added.
Another neighbour, Missy Sheridan, told Global News they also heard gunshots late on Wednesday night.
“This went on until about, just after three in the morning,” she said.
“They closed off the whole area, told everyone to get inside.”
Sheridan said it is a family neighbourhood and what happened overnight was shocking.
She added that she did not know the people who lived in the first home but she had seen them many times over the years.
The victims and the suspect have not been named at this time.
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