CTV News Edmonton has reported:

Daycares near a south Edmonton shooting on Oct. 9 were not notified about the incident, leaving staff and parents seeking answers as nearby schools went into lockdown or alert. Two teens were injured in a drive-by shooting near Saddleback Road and 27 Avenue at about 1:20 p.m., and police said the shooting was targeted.

Parent Taylor Smith said the news prompted immediate concern. “It was an instant worry,” Smith said. “We came and picked up our kids as soon as we could.”

Smith said the daycare sent a message saying there was a police incident nearby and that children were being kept indoors. The message did not say a shooting had occurred. “You need that information. You need to know what’s going on,” Smith said. “We live down the street, so it was tough seeing all that happen and not getting information for days of what actually happened in the area.”

Isabel McRae, executive director of Bright Beginnings Early Learning and Child Care Centre, said one educator heard several gunshots and hid in the office without knowing what was happening outside. McRae said police would not let her into the daycare when she arrived at the scene and told her the centre could not open. “She hid in our office, totally unaware of what was happening outside,” McRae told CTV News Edmonton.

“Parents trust us with their most loved children every single day. They expect their children are safe,” McRae said. “If we’re not being told of an immediate threat happening outside our doors, how can we ensure that we are able to keep those children safe and that parents can still trust us doing so.”

The Edmonton Police Service said officers cannot always contact every private business in an area individually. “When it comes to notifying area residents or businesses, or advising neighbourhoods to take action such as sheltering in place, police will assess the public risk involved in each investigation,” EPS said in a statement.

Police said a suspect in the Oct. 9 shooting was quickly identified and taken into custody. A random incident with a suspect still at large would pose a greater risk and could lead police to issue a shelter-in-place direction, the service said. “We recognize this must have been a frightening event for area residents and businesses, and want to reassure Edmontonians that investigators acted swiftly to identify and apprehend those involved.”

The Learning Store at Blue Quill was locked down for about 45 minutes. Sweet Grass School, nearby, was in lockdown for about five minutes before being placed on alert, while Greenfield School was also put on alert.

During a school lockdown, doors are locked and students and staff must remain quiet with the lights off. An alert requires external doors to be locked, but people inside can move through the building and classes continue as usual. Police protocol calls for EPS to notify schools of an ongoing incident or a heavy police presence nearby; school administrators decide what response to take.

“Why are we less important?” McRae said. She said notifying licensed childcare centres could be a straightforward change: “It’s probably an automated response that schools get … so adding licensed childcare centres to that database, I believe, would be a simple solution.”

Dan Jones, a criminologist at NorQuest College, said police have the technology to send notifications to specific areas, but doing so requires a decision to invest the effort. “You can have that message sent out to specific areas,” Jones said. “Technology is at a place where they can do that without massive amounts of human resources … EPS and other police services have to be accountable and look at how we ensure that we put public safety first.”

EPS said it received a letter from one of the daycares and is reviewing it along with the events of the day of the shooting. The report included files from CTV News Edmonton’s Miriam Valdes-Carletti.