MONTREAL - Police said they found three men between the ages of 32 and 42 shot and killed in the Montreal area over the past 24 hours.

At least two of the murders are gang-related, police told QMI Agency.

Montreal police said they found a 37-year-old man with bullet wounds in a shopping centre parking lot in the city's east end on Friday around 7 p.m. He was pronounced dead in hospital.

Police said a 32-year-old man was also shot in the parking lot and he took refuge in a nearby restaurant. He was injured in the lower and upper body but will survive, police said.

Several hours later, around 2 a.m., a 42-year-old man was shot and killed outside his home in Laval, Que., just across the river from Montreal. The victim was breathing when police arrived but was pronounced dead in hospital. Police said the victim was shot by someone waiting for him in the building's parking area.

Police said both victims were known to police and their murders were likely related.

"The circumstances in (the first two murder) cases are similar and (the shootings occurred) within hours of each other," Montreal police spokesman Daniel Fortier said.

"Everything points towards a settling of scores," said Nathalie Lorrain, spokeswoman for the Laval police. She added that the Laval victim had several prior convictions.

At around 2 p.m., police said they were called to an apartment in central Montreal after a woman said she found her friend bleeding in her apartment.

Fortier said police found a 33-year-old man bleeding on the floor "who looked like he was shot at least one in the chest." Paramedics pronounced the man dead at the scene around 4 p.m.

Police said it is too early to tell if the 33-year-old victim's murder was related to the other two shooting deaths.

There were no witnesses to the Laval shooting, police said.
However, Montreal police said witnesses to the parking lot murder in Montreal's east end said they saw a black man flee the scene on foot.

It had been 13 months since police said someone was murdered in Laval, and the 37 and 33-year-old men killed in Montreal were the city's 17th and 18th homicides of the year. Montreal had 21 homicides by this time last year.