Police investigating after BB gun shooter targets Montreal Islamic centre
Shooter was caught on camera, targeting Assahaba Islamic Community Centre in Montreal's east end
Montreal police are investigating after someone shot at an Islamic community centre with an air rifle Monday evening.
No one was injured in the incident, which happened at the Assahaba Islamic Community Centre on Bélanger Street in the Rosemont neighbourhood.
The community centre posted a surveillance video to its Facebook page that shows a hooded person wearing a medical mask approach the building around 7 p.m.
The person points a weapon at the centre, takes 11 shots, then runs away. In a post on Facebook, the community centre said the weapon appeared to be a BB gun and that the person in the video was chased but got away.
On Tuesday morning, marks left by the projectiles were visible on the windows outside the centre.
The Montreal police service's hate crimes unit is handling the investigation into the incident.
In 2014, the community centre was vandalized repeatedly, including once when an axe was thrown through a window with an anti-Muslim note attached to it.
The Canadian Collective anti-Islamophobia released a statement this afternoon, calling on the provincial government to do more to protect mosques and Islamic community centres.
The group, whose spokesperson Adil Charkaoui is associated with the Assahaba centre, said that last October it asked the Legault government to do more, after several Quebec mosques were targeted, and yet "no concrete measures have been taken."
The National Council of Canadian Muslims' Yusuf Faqiri called the incident "another devastating blow to the feeling of safety and security for Quebec Muslims."