A 17-year-old teen is dead and multiple other people were injured after a shooting in Mississauga occurred outside a residential building near Morning Star and Goreway Drives at approximately 6:30 p.m. on Saturday evening, authorities said.

One of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries.

Although police have yet to identify any suspects, Peel Region police chief Chris McCord said police have gathered from eyewitnesses that there were multiple individuals armed with semi-automatic weapons. The individuals fled the scene before police arrived.

“When you have individuals armed with weapons such as this,” McCord said, “yes, we do have a genuine concern for public safety.”

A woman in her 50s was one of the six people injured, and she remains in serious, life-threatening condition. Two 17-year-olds, one 16-year-old and a 13-year-old have also all sustained serious but non life-threatening injuries.

One neighbour said the 13-year-old girl, who was one of the shooting victims, was a Syrian refugee, and had only recently arrived in the country.

“I know her mother,” said the young man who did not want to be identified. “She was just playing in the grass in front of the building, minding her own business.”

Fran Rosati, who’s lived in the Darcel Ave. neighbourhood for 25 years, said her husband heard about 20 shots ring out around 6:30 p.m. as she was returning home from shopping. Rosati said the neighbourhood had been a peaceful one, but had seen more violence in the past several years.

“I won’t even let my 12-year-old daughter play around here anymore,” she said.

Another neighbour, who said her name was Ms. Jones, said she heard what she thought was gunfire, but attributed it to the nearby construction. When she came out to her porch, just across from the apartment complex, police vehicles were swarming the street.

At least 16 Peel police vehicles lined Darcel Ave. outside the six-storey apartment complex, including a tactical and K9 unit. Many neighbours said they’d been told that the road will be closed off for the night.

Colleen Arruda, who lives in the complex where the shooting occurred, said she and her husband were watching the Hamilton Tiger-Cats football game when they heard what sounded like a gunshot, “It must’ve been the last one, because when we looked out, the police were coming in car after car.”

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Peel region police mobile command centre is set up at the eastern end of the apartment complex and are investigating the scene of the crime.

“We have a large area of where we have shell casings in different parts of the scene,” McCord said.

McCord said police cannot determine if the shooting was targeted or gang related. No arrests have been made.

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