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Separate violent incidents Friday at Market Mall in northwest Calgary and CrossIron Mills in Rocky View County
Calgary police were called to the northwest mall around 2:40 p.m. after receiving reports of a stabbing.
“At this time, we have four individuals in custody & there is no ongoing threat to the public,” the police service said in a post on X, the social media network formerly known as Twitter.
The incident occurred near the east entrance of the mall, which was bustling with Black Friday shoppers.
Staff Sgt. Lon Brewster told media on the scene the attack was between members of two rival groups who “had some issues with each other,” and who “chose to try and settle that within the confines of the mall rather than somewhere else.”
“This is what happens in large cities,” he told reporters. “It can happen really anywhere. It should concern us all that things like this can happen in broad daylight but I think we should all just take a little solace that it’s few and far between in public areas like the mall.”
Hours later, RCMP said three people were transported to hospital after officers responded to reports of multiple stabbings at the CrossIron Mills mall around 6:50 p.m. Mounties said the three victims had varying levels of injuries and all were in stable condition.
Multiple suspects fled the mall parking lot in a newer white Toyota Highlander.
Mounties later found the vehicle, leading to a number of arrests. The suspects remain in custody, pending charges, RCMP said in an update released early Saturday.
Investigators said it’s believed the attacks were targeted.
Friday’s violence follows a string of recent shootings that have been attributed to gang violence in Calgary.
A shooting on Nov. 13 outside the TransCanada Centre strip mall on 52nd Street N.E. killed one person and sent two people to the hospital.
A day before, multiple houses were hit by stray bullets along MacEwan Glen Drive N.W. when gunfire broke out shortly after 2 a.m., according to witnesses.
The incident was preceded by another shooting a day earlier when a group broke into a home in the northeast community of Abbeydale, where police say they assaulted two occupants and then sprayed nearby homes with bullets as they fled.
And two days before that, one occupant of a vehicle was shot in the 900 block of Marcombe Drive N.E., in Marlborough. Police said the vehicle then struck a tree, injuring two other occupants.
“It is not common we’d see this many days in a row with this type of violence,” Cory Dayley, superintendent of criminal operations and intelligence, had told media in a news conference on Nov. 13.
Market Mall was also the site of a shooting in its parking lot in mid-August this year.
