Police speak to the owner of the Sandpoint Drive home on Tuesday after a man was fatally shot at the residence on Saturday Dale Boyd/Times-Chronicle

 

Dale Boyd

Times-Chronicle

Steven Gallagher was not initially worried when he heard gunshots coming from outside the window of his Sandpoint Drive home Saturday night. A few moments later he would find his downstairs tenant dying from a gunshot wound.

“At first, when I heard it, I thought, ‘oh, it’s Saturday night.’ People shoot around on the reserve quite a bit. I didn’t think anything of it really. I thought it was somebody drunk and shooting around,” Gallagher said. “I kind of looked out the window, not right away, I kind of slowly looked out the window after the second shot. I could hear screams.”

Gallagher owns the home in the 6000-block of Sandpoint Drive where his downstairs tenant, 21-year-old Noah Zakall, was shot and killed on June 13 around 11:30 p.m.

“He was in the hot tub in the back, in my back yard. As I looked out the back window I could see (the hot tub) was open. You could just see the blood coming out of it. I went downstairs in the back … I see the blood trail going to his room. He was pretty much laying in his room on his bed with a big hole in the back of his shoulder,” Gallagher said. 

RCMP have not named the victim or a suspect as of June 16.

Gallagher told the Times-Chronicle he did not see any people or vehicles leaving the area that night.

“There were no vehicles. I didn’t see anything,” Gallagher said. “I sit in the hot tub with him sometimes. It could have been me too.”

Gallagher said Zakall had lived in a few other houses on the Osoyoos Indian Band (OIB) Reserve and “kind of jumped around” before he rented out Gallagher’s basement. For the most part, Zakall and Gallagher kept to themselves he said.

“I wasn’t really involved with his way of life,” Gallagher said. “I wasn’t really involved and didn’t know much about it.”

The basement where Zakall resided was also the subject of an RCMP search warrant, according to Gallagher, which turned up a handgun, drugs and cash on May 6 according to an RCMP press release. However, RCMP only identified a “21-year-old Oliver man,” and said he was facing “a number of charges.”

On May 15, nine days later, the Times-Chronicle contacted the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC), and a spokesperson stated the “PPSC cannot speak to a matter unless or until charges are laid. We have no information to provide.” The PPSC again had “no information to provide” on June 16. 

Gallagher was let back into his home Monday night, which he said was still “bloody,” shortly after the birth of his son — within 24 hours of the shooting.

“It’s the craziest 24 hours of my life. Like, that happened and the next day I had a baby,” Gallagher said. “It’s kind of like I watched someone die one night and then I watched someone get born … it’s crazy … pretty crazy 24 hours to happen like that.”

In June, an Osoyoos Indian Band community newsletter included a copy of a band council resolution, signed by the Chief and five band councillors, to ban Noah Zakall from the Osoyoos Indian Band Reserve, stating “the Chief and council does not support or condone drug dealing and illegal weapons on its reserve.”

“The band put out a community newsletter basically calling him a drug dealer and stuff,” Gallagher said.  “Saying he has illegal guns … at this point he hadn’t been charged with anything to do with guns or drugs.”

Gallagher also raised concerns about a statement from the OIB in the same newsletter which is addressed to himself and five other OIB residents titled “OIB’s Community Water System (not for housing drug dealers/thieves/criminals).”

The statement says the band will shut off water access to residents if “police records prove that there is ongoing criminal activity coming out of your lot.”

“If the house is on the Band’s community water system the Band controls the water to that house. If there is ongoing criminal activity the Band Council has the right to shut off the band water to that house,” the notice states.

“OIB water is for OIB members not for your non-native friends. You may own your house and lot but you do not own the water that the Band pays for.”

The notice also says the RCMP were called on to the reservation 135 times from March to May, outlining specific areas with trailers and RVs rented out to non-band members.

“Your home is being put on notice that the police have been asked to patrol more until the non-band members you are housing (who are involved in criminal activity) leave,” the notice states.