On Sunday, the 28-year-old man shot and killed outside Vancouver’s International Airport became the region’s 10th shooting in only three weeks, with many of them fatal.
His death is believed to be linked to the ongoing Lower Mainland gang conflict, homicide investigators said Sunday.
On Monday, investigators said the victim was Karman Grewal.
“I think we’re all tired of seeing the violence that is taking place on our streets,” Sgt. Frank Jang with the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team said during a late news conference Sunday.
An SUV described as a red or maroon coloured Honda Pilot fled the airport with at least two people inside, police said.
A short time later, fire crews in Surrey were called to attend a vehicle fire in a back alley, about 28 kilometres from the airport. Several targeted shootings have ended with similar vehicle fires.
Investigators are asking for dashcam video from the following time periods and locations:
- Around YVR between 2:30 p.m. and 2:58 p.m.
- Major highways and roadways between YVR and 9700-block Princess Drive in Surrey between 2:58 p.m. and 3:24 p.m.
- Area of 9700-block Princess Drive, Surrey around 3:30 p.m.
There’s been a string of shootings resulting in murders and injuries in Metro Vancouver over the last few weeks, taking place near shopping centres, restaurants and busy streets.
A 19-year-old was shot and killed in Burnaby around 7 p.m. Saturday night in the area of 13th Avenue and 6th Street. The victim has now been identified as Toni Dalipi.
On Sunday, 20-year-old Ahmed Riyaz Tahir was charged with first-degree murder, Mann said.
Police said an innocent bystander was also struck by a bullet during the brazen shooting.
“He was an innocent victim, in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Assistant Commissioner Manny Mann with the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit said Monday morning.
He went to the hospital himself, Mann said, and thankfully his injuries are not believed to be life-threatening.
Bikramdeep Randhawa, a B.C. corrections officer, was gunned down outside Scottsdale Centre Mall on May 1.
No suspects have been identified in connection with the fatal shooting of the 29-year-old.
A man was shot outside Langley’s Willowbrook shopping centre on May 3. He was taken to the hospital but is expected to survive.
On April 30, a 19-year-old was shot and killed in Surrey.
Investigators said that the young man showed up at the hospital just after 1:30 p.m. with a gunshot wound and died soon after.
On May 5, a woman was shot in Surrey.
RCMP say 20-year-old Keryane Arsenault was rushed to hospital after suffering a gunshot wound just before 9 p.m. near 96 Avenue and 161A Street.
IHIT later confirmed she died of her injuries.
Twenty-four-year-old Ali Khudhair was charged with second-degree murder in connection with the shooting.
A 25-year-old woman was shot in Burnaby on May 2. Burnaby RCMP said it happened around 4:10 a.m. Sunday morning, near Dubois Street and Boundary Road. She is expected to survive.
On April 21, a man in his 40s was shot and killed at the Langley Sportsplex on 91A Avenue just after 9 a.m.
On April 20, 20-year-old Bailey McKinney was shot dead near the skate park at Coquitlam’s Town Centre Park.
A man was shot and killed in Vancouver’s Coal Harbour on April 18. The victim was identified as Harpreet Singh Dhaliwal from Abbotsford.
In 2009, police had 24-hour-a-day surveillance on Abbotsford’s notorious Bacon brothers that was so visible that the youngest Bacon filed a harassment complaint.
“We had to come up with some solutions. We were well on our way to becoming the murder capital of Canada in 08/09,” former Abbotsford police chief Bob Rich told Global News.
Rich said the department’s strategy was simple: Make Abbotsford an uncomfortable place to be a gangster.
“We started asking our businesses, ‘Don’t serve these people,’” Rich said.
“Don’t lease them a car they can get armoured.… Go to the bars, ‘I’m sorry these people should not be in your bar, we’re kicking them out, we ask you not to let them back in,’ go to the gyms and say, ‘These people should not be in your gym, they’re putting your other customers at risk.’”
The process worked, at least in the short term. The city went from having among Canada’s highest murder rates to zero murders by 2011.