Niagara family in shock after gunman opens fire on home

A Niagara family is appealing to the public to help police find the man who opened fire with a gun on their house this week.

READ MORE: Four gunshots heard in shocking video of Niagara Falls shooting

The family and their neighbours are in shock over the shooting, which sent the family ducking for cover as bullets flew through their front window. The family and others in their neighbourhood in Niagara Falls say this is a complete mystery. They have no idea why a man would target their house and fire four bullets into the living room while they were watching a hockey game.

Nadine Murray lives in the house with her husband and two sons, a family was badly shaken by this shooting.

“It’s very scary and I hope that if anybody knows anything please call Crimestoppers because we don’t feel safe,” Murray said.

The shooting happened at around 9 p.m. on Tuesday. Niagara Regional Police Service (NRPS) has released pictures of the suspect, a white man with black hair wearing a hoodie. His actions before the shooting stand out. Police say he paced back and forth in front of the house for four minutes like he was making sure it was safe to shoot.

Phil Gavin of NRPS says, “the behaviour is very similar to a threat scan, they’re looking for potential threat cues, who’s going to see them. So they walk around in the immediate area but ultimately at some point they make the decision that they’re going to commit this violent criminal act and they move toward the house and they fire the four shots.”

After the shooting, police say the gunman ran to a grey Volkswagen Jetta driven by a South Asian man with a moustache. Neighbours describe the family as peaceful, friendly, hardworking people and have no idea why they’d be the target of a shooting.

Nadine is searching for an explanation of why they were the targets, and how someone could shoot at them. No one was hit by the bullets.

Niagara police say they’re putting a lot of resources into the investigation, including going door to door in the neighbourhood on Friday. While Nadine is looking for answers she says one possibility might be that this shooting was some kind of gang initiation. Police say they’re looking into that and like the family, say they could use any help they get from the public.