Bullet Pierces Window

When Earl Stephen “Steve” Seymour was sprayed with bullets across from Pigeon Park on Friday evening, there could have been another victim. Rob Hewitt or his fiancée Venessa Marshall could have been hauled away in a body bag too.

A stray bullet pierced the window of the second floor suite Hewitt and Marshall share on Carrall St. near Hastings. The next day Hewitt noticed an orange dot outside his front door where police forensics had marked the spot where the shell casing had fallen to the ground. [Above is a photo of the building in front of which the shooting occurred. Police searched for bullet casings in front of the door covered with plywood to the left.]

Hewitt, a City employee, is upset about the shooting, according to comments he made to Vancouver's 24 Hours newspaper: "I'm sick of the attitudes towards the people down in this area who say, 'F--k, it's just a drug dealer. Who cares?'

"I care. A lot of people down here care about each other."

Hewitt is keeping the window with the bullet hole, as a reminder of what happened.

Bluenoser Blown Away

Photo: police officers collecting evidence at crime scene immediately following the shooting

The man shot and killed at Hastings & Carrall St. on Friday night has been identified as 40 year old Earl Steve Seymour. He was from originally from Glace Bay, Nova Scotia but then moved to Bible Hill, Nova Scotia. In recent years, he had been living in Vancouver. He was known to police, according to VPD spokesperson Jana McGuinness.

Further details of the murder have now surfaced. The suspect reportedly arrived in a car, parked at Pigeon Park, and then walked across the street to a parked minivan in which Seymour sat with a woman.

Upon reaching the van, CBC reports, the suspect said, "The war is on."

"Turtle" McDonald, a witness, says the victim "jumped out of the driver's seat because there was nowhere for him to go." He jumped across the hood of his minivan but by the time he managed to do so, he had taken four or five shots to the head.

After firing a total of six or seven shots, the suspect ran west, on foot, down the alley in the direction of the Army & Navy store and the Cambie Hotel Hostel.