Charges have been laid against 20-year-old Nick Pavlasek, a student from WLU, after three seperate shootings of pedestrians with a pellet gun. </p>
All three of Pavlasek’s attacks took place Sept. 7 against female students from WLU. In the most severe attack, Pavlasek shot pellets at a woman resulting in serious injury to her eye that has demanded ongoing medical treatment. This incident happened along King and Hickory. The other two attacks, an hour apart from each other, left one woman with a minor injury to her collarbone and another with a minor injury to her wrist.
Mike Haffner, staff sergeant at Waterloo Regional Police Services, wasn’t able to say whether or not Pavlasek was targeting his victims as the case is still ongoing.
After being released on bail for $5,000, Pavlasek has been placed under house arrest at his Toronto home residence. He is also no longer allowed to enter the Waterloo Region, unless it is to retrieve his possessions or attend court. His next appearance is on Dec. 17.
Incidents involving pellet guns happen “quite regularly,” according to Haffner. “They are becoming more frequent, and it’s disturbing because for those individuals that are carrying them, they may know it’s a pellet gun, but for the people that are actually being the victims of the crime … it’s very difficult to determine which ones are replicas and which ones aren’t.”
Haffner could not comment on whether this incident may provoke copycats, but does say that this is the kind of incident that captures the attention of imitators.
“It’s unfortunate, but I think that there are people out there that try to imitate those things. We have a number of TV shows that we see all the time that speak to that. It’s unfortunate, but I think that’s society. Those individuals that do initially commit these incidents or subsequently … copycat, they may not understand the true ramifications of their actions.”
