Shots fired at Nanook school

KIRSTEN MURPHY

Iqaluit RCMP are searching for a lone gunman after eight shots were fired at Nanook school in Apex earlier this week.

A janitor found a bullet fragment inside the school’s empty gymnasium around 2:30 p.m. on Feb. 25. No one was injured.

The shots were fired from outside the school, which sits in an area surrounded by houses and the Qimmavik women’s shelter.

The school was immediately closed and its 80 students quarantined in one classroom away from the gym.

Students were released by 4 p.m., and the school re-opened the next day.

Only two of the eight shots penetrated the gym wall. Both of those shots left splintered pressure marks inside the school, but did not cause any major damage. The blasts were several metres off the ground and well above the height of the average elementary student.

One witness said he saw an armed adult male on the hill behind the school on Feb. 25. Neither police nor school officials could say who heard the shots or at exactly what time the shots were fired.

Hillary Da Silva, the principal of Nanook, said one parent, concerned for their child’s safety, kept a student home from school the next day.

“Everything is fine. We followed all the procedures,” Da Silva said.

Gym classes were on hold the next day while investigators studied the damaged walls.

Cpl. Ed Anderson told reporters the bullet fragments may have been fired from a .22 calibre rifle.

Sgt. Fred Thompson, a forensic identification specialist, measured and photographed the bullet holes the day after the punctures were discovered.

“A pellet gun would not do this much damage. But it’s all speculation until we get the results from the lab,” Thompson said.

One bystander suggested the shots were the work of a prankster firing at an outside light.

The bullet fragment discovered by the janitor has been sent to laboratory in Edmonton.

The RCMP did not have a description of the suspect at press-time. Anyone with information about the incident is asked to contact the Iqaluit RCMP at 975-4452.