Shots fired at homes a trend police are seeing in the region: Chief

Homes targeted with gunfire is a growing trend in Waterloo Region, police say, as yet another home was shot at by suspects over the weekend.

Residents were woken up at 3:30 a.m. on March 1 to the sound of gunshots. The incident happened near Ottawa Street South and Trussler Road. Officers later confirmed multiple bullets were fired at a home, and there were no injuries.

“Well over a dozen shots fired into a home — alarming for a residential community of any kind in our region — and that was a second shooting incident of a similar nature in 2025,” Chief Mark Crowell, of Waterloo Regional Police Service (WRPS), told The Mike Farwell show.

The other situation happened Jan. 9 when shots were fired at a Kitchener home in the Howe Drive and Ottawa Street South community. This came after yet another incident in Cambridge in December when a resident noticed damage to a home in the Munch Avenue area.

In all the scenarios police found multiple shots had been fired but no injuries reported.

“That is a trend that we’ve seen, targeted incidents to specific locations, sometimes in the still of the night, and it’s very alarming for individuals and neighborhoods involved,” Crowell said.

Last year there were 22 shootings in the region, a trend that has been ongoing for the last several years. Five homicides were reported in 2024, with four of those committed with a gun.

“We cannot allow it to become commonplace, that we just accept that this as something that happens,” the chief said.

Crowell said the force has taken an evidence-driven approach when tackling the issues in the region. He said that officers are focusing on preventing crime before it happens by making sure they target the people who are most likely to be victims, the problem areas and activities.

One of the tools that help police is the Provincial Firearms Bail Dashboard, which rolled out earlier this year, that allows officers to figure out who in the community or outside of the region have bail conditions related to firearms offences.

Crowell said the targeted house shootings are largely being connected to other ongoing investigations.

“It’s some sort of turmoil within relationships within networks of organized crime, typically drug trafficking activity,” he said. “Sometimes it’s a personal relationship issue between individuals or groups. But at the end of the day, it’s intimidation.”

The concern for WRPS is that even just one bullet could go astray when multiple rounds are being fired into a home.

“It’s no mistake that the intent is not only to intimidate, but to potentially hurt and kill someone,” Crowell said.