The Airdrie branch of the Royal Canadian Legion was startled to find what appeared to be a bullet hole in an upstairs window of the local hall last week.
“The club’s closed from Saturday evening until Tuesday morning,” explained Bill Drummond, first vice-president of the #288 Airdrie branch, in a recent interview with the Airdrie City View. “When the cleaning staff went in there on Tuesday morning (April 2), they found the hole in the window upstairs.”
Drummond said one of the branch officers called the Airdrie RCMP upon hearing the report of a broken window from the cleaning staff. At first, it was thought to be the result of someone throwing a stone, but Drummond said the hole in the window was too clean for that. Former soldiers at the branch felt immediately it looked like a bullet hole.
“The initial thought was somebody threw a stone, but you can tell it was not a stone,” Drummond said. “They figured it was probably a ‘22 (calibre), but they were not sure.”
In speaking with the investigating officer from the RCMP, Drummond said the ‘22 theory also seemed to be taken seriously, but the bullet has yet to be recovered.
The City View reached out to the Airdrie RCMP to ask about the case, and a spokesperson confirmed police have not officially confirmed the bullet theory.
“A window was damaged but we cannot say it was shot,” the spokesperson said.
Drummond said it looks like the bullet, if that is what it was, was fired up at an angle from just outside the Legion building on Bowers Street and likely ended up in the Legion’s ceiling, making it difficult to recover.
Regardless of whether it was indeed a bullet as it appears, Drummond said it was certainly a careless act of vandalism.
“I am really stunned that somebody would create vandalism (at the Legion), and possibly put somebody’s life in danger with a gun,” he said. “Why somebody would do that makes no sense to me.”
Thankfully, no one was in the building at the time when the incident took place.
