Man 'flabbergasted' after couple digs up crossbow from Victoria playground

The pair who allegedly dug up the gun are shown. (Submitted)

A Victoria man says he's shocked after he watched a couple dig up what appeared to be a gun from a playground on Wednesday morning.

The man, who wishes to stay anonymous, was beside the Quadra Heights playground near Topaz Park around 7:30 a.m. to walk his dog alongside his neighbour and her dog, when a man and a woman came charging towards them.

"All of sudden this couple started running into the park and we had to kind of move away from where we were standing," said the witness.

"The gentleman got underneath the little merry-go-round over there and starts digging through the woodchips," he said.

The witness, who lives in the neighbourhood, says a woman stood beside the man holding a red bag as he dug for four or five minutes, eventually retrieving what looked like a gun.

"At first I though the gun was some weird contraption, like some weird looking kind of gun," said the witness.

The man handed the weapon to the woman who put it into the red bag. He then retrieved something shiny, which the witness believes were bullets.

"I wasn't exactly sure what it was, but my neighbour had a perfect view of a fistful of bullets," he said.

The pair then "casually walked away." As they were leaving, the resident took a picture of the pair and called 911.

HANDHELD CROSSBOW

Victoria police say the investigation is still in its early stages, but that two people were arrested Wednesday and that officers retrieved a handheld crossbow, which is a prohibited weapon.

The witness tells CTV News he and his neighbour were "flabbergasted" by the situation.

"Honestly, and I said this to many people, if my neighbour hadn't been there and witnessed it with me at that time I wouldn't have believed it myself. And she said the exact same thing," he said.

Ultimately, he says he wants more to be done about the state of the neighbourhood.

"Topaz Park right now – it will never be as bad as tent city when 400 people were living there – but it's as worse as it's ever been since then."