Saint-Leonard shooting victim identified; Montrealers shaken by new spate of violence

People in Cartierville say that they're upset by something that's become all too common there this year, as in many Montreal neighourhoods: gunfire, sometimes fatal, even in some of the city's busiest places.

Laurentian Blvd. in Cartierville is one of these bustling thoroughfares, but that didn't stop the perpetrators of the city's most recent shooting, which wounded a 17-year-old on Tuesday night.

The teen was walking with two friends along Laurential when they were shot at just after 10 p.m., police said. The shooter fled the scene and there have been no arrests. The boy was injured in the upper body and is in stable condition.

"When it will be possible, investigators will meet with victim to see if he can explain the situation," said a Montreal police spokesperson.

The previous shooting victim wasn't so lucky, health-wise -- a 39-year-old man was shot dead in Saint-Leonard on Monday.

The victim has been identified as Kevin Batebi, and he was killed as he left work at a local grocery store.

He wasn't known to police, they said.

YOUNG PEOPLE TRYING TO TAKE ACTION

Not only parents but young people themselves say they're growing increasingly worried about the frequency of shootings, and some are speaking out.

Mohamed Mimoun, a community worker in Saint-Michel, said he's fed up with gun violence and the toll it takes.

"I find the death of another person to be sad in general," he said. "When it's a young person, it's worse, because they have their whole lives ahead of them, to succeed, to change."

After last month's shooting that killed 16-year-old Saint-Michel boy Thomas Trudel, Mimoun organized an anti-gun march. It drew politicians from all levels of government, he said -- but action has been slow to follow.

"There are two areas to work on," Mimoun said. "Prevention, that's really a job for the medium and long term," finding ways to keep youth away from the wrong environments and from guns.

"The second is really about guns -- how to create gun control so they're not accessible to youth."

In the wake of Trudel's death, a group of the boy's friends also organized themselves to lobby for gun control.

But Mimoun said that at the current rate, he expects more young people will be victimized before meaningful changes are put in place to change the situation.