Court officials say a man who was caught firing a paintball gun at a crowd outside Lethbridge's supervised consumption site pleaded guilty and was sentenced on Friday.
Jesse Bulman, 29, of Lethbridge was charged in connection with an attack that targeted a number of people gathered outside the city's safe consumption site on August 24, 2019.
Officials say a white Dodge truck drove past ARCHES Lethbridge at about midnight and multiple shots were fired from a paintball gun at them.
Two men were able to avoid being hit but a female staffer was hit multiple times.
Police say the offender fired again at a number of clients walking to the centre along 1 Avenue S., but none of those individuals were hit.
Bulman pleaded guilty to three counts of assault with a weapon and was sentenced to 180 days in jail and one year of probation.
With 41 days pretrial credit, he has 139 days left to serve.
Officials with ARCHES say the victim of the shooting, a female staff member, was hit in the face, neck, shoulder, arm, hand and many other parts of her body. She is currently at work while she is recovering from the incident.
They understand many people are still upset about the supervised consumption site but hope attitudes change in the future.
"Some people in the community have continued to be vitriolic and at times violent towards the people we serve but we are hopeful that we will be able to come together as a community instead of continuing to be divisive and causing harm on both sides of the argument," said Stacey Bourque, ARCHES' executive director in an email.
The attack on the centre took place just two weeks after ARCHES released a report on the supervised consumption site that recorded a high uptake on service.
The report states between February 2018 and July 2019, there have been 267,754 visits to the site, with approximately 1,376 community members accessing it with an average of 663 visits per day.
