Matt Helfand showed up at the parking lot on London’s Richmond Row Friday morning, ready to set up a collection depot for Western University students moving out of their apartments.

What he found was police tape and a pool of blood right where he expected to set up.

Hours before, around bar-­closing time, the site behind a house at 200 John St., just off the Richmond Row bar strip, was the scene of an overnight shooting that left a man in critical condition at London Health Sciences Centre.

The crime scene left Helfand, who has lived in the Richmond Row area for years, shaken.

“As a resident near here, it’s terrifying. A shooting in this area is really shocking,” said Helfand, a law student and former president of the Western student council.

A large pool and trail of blood were visible behind the home early Friday, as police investigated.

Police cruisers and a forensics identification van remained at the scene much of the day. By evening, the van was gone and the parking lot open, but a pair of detectives were on the scene interviewing some residents.

Police released few details, but Const. Chris Stumpf said the adult male suffered a gunshot wound and was taken to LHSC, where he remained in critical condition.

Police hadn’t released the man’s age or identity.

The shooting occurred at 2:23 a.m., just after the bars close and the streets in the area often are filled with young people.

The parking lot serves customers of CEEPs-Barney’s Bar and Grill, owned by the Tattersall family, but also is open to the public.

The historic tavern has been a favourite haunt of Western ­students for generations. But the patio was closed Thursday night because of the unseasonably cold weather.

Sources told The Free Press the people involved in the incident weren’t CEEPs-Barney’s patrons and had walked into the lot from the John Street entrance on the south end. That account couldn’t be confirmed with police.

A student and server at Barney’s, who’d just moved into the area, said the early-morning dramatics didn’t rouse her.

“I didn’t hear anything. I slept through it,” said the woman, who didn’t want to be named but was interviewed by police Friday morning.

She said she wasn’t aware of any direct witnesses to the incident. She said the CEEPs-Barney staff park in the lot, but were likely still cleaning up the tavern when the shooting took place.

Stumpf said police hoped to obtain video footage to help them in the investigation.

There’s a video camera in the parking lot, but it’s located near the bar patio at the opposite end of the lot from where the shooting took place.

The police had cordoned off a large section of the lot, forcing the university student council to cancel the drop-off event.

Helfand showed up Friday to run the Move Out-Clean Out event organized by the student council that was to be held in the lot right at the scene of the shooting not long beforehand.

The CEEPs-Barney’s had donated space for the event, which allows students bailing out of the city at the end of the school year to donate their furniture, books and non-perishable food to charity.