news B.C. Mounties investigate after woman gunned down inside Mercedes

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B.C. Mounties investigate after woman gunned down inside Mercedes


Wed Apr 15, 8:57 PM






By The Canadian Press



VANCOUVER, B.C. - There's been yet another fatal shooting in Metro Vancouver and for the fourth time in recent months the victim is a woman who was known to police.


Mounties were called to a Richmond, B.C., industrial complex early Wednesday morning after a woman in her 30s was gunned down in the driver's seat of her grey Mercedes Benz.


Integrated Homicide Investigation Team spokesman Cpl. Dale Carr says she is known to RCMP because of "the criminality that she's involved with."


Carr said indications are that she was targeted.


"The number of women that have been murdered in an apparent targeted shooting this year is certainly an anomaly," he said.


"It's certainly something that is not usual and does stand out to us. . . . It certainly demonstrates to us that in today's world, even if you're a woman, you're not immune to being shot and killed by people involved in criminal activity."


Laura Lynn Lamoureux was shot to death in Langley March 14.


RCMP have said she was known for her involvement in the street-level drug trade.


Nikki Alemy was found dead at the wheel of her husband's car in February in a death that shocked many throughout Metro Vancouver because Alemy's four-year-old son was in the back seat.


And less than two weeks before that, convicted drug-trafficker Brianna Kinnear was shot dead in a pickup in Coquitlam.


The Vancouver region is in the midst of a violent gang war that has seen more than four dozen shooting incidents since mid-January and now 21 confirmed shooting deaths.


With a provincial election looming May 12, crime has become a hot button issue for both major parties.


B.C.'s Liberal government has vowed to crack down on gangs and gun crimes by hiring more police officers, prosecutors, and establishing tougher laws and sentences.


The opposition New Democrats say they will fight gang violence by hiring 168 new police officers and creating an anti-gang prosecution team, restricting bail for known gang members, and pushing for tougher laws for gun related crimes.