news Vancouver police say man shot dead in SUV was a targeted shooting

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Vancouver police say man shot dead in SUV was a targeted shooting



Sun Apr 5, 4:42 PM





By The Canadian Press


VANCOUVER, B.C. - It's becoming an all too familiar scenario in Vancouver.

911 calls pour in after shots are heard and police rush to the scene of another shooting.

This time the body of a man was found slumped over the steering wheel of a white SUV in a restaurant parking lot. Vancouver police say he had been shot.

Const. Jana McGuinness said the shooting happened just before midnight Saturday.

"This appears to be a targeted shooting," said McGuinness, who has used the same term for numerous shootings that have rocked the Metro Vancouver area in the past four months.

Vancouver's police chief Jim Chu has said the area is in the middle of a brutal gang war that has involved more than 100 shootings in recent years.

McGuinness couldn't say yet if this shooting matched that description.

"Further investigation will reveal whether there are any links to gang activity."

The shooting came just hours after police announced more charges in the gang execution of six men in a Surrey, B.C., apartment building 18 months ago.

Among the six killed where two innocent bystanders Chris Mohan, 22, who was grabbed from the hallway of his apartment building and pulled into the suite by the killers and 55-year-old Ed Schellenberg a fireplace repairman working in the same apartment.

On Friday, Dennis Karbovanec - a man police say is an associate of the Red Scorpions gang - pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for his part in three of the six deaths.

Police announced on Saturday that Cody Haevischer, Matthew Johnston, and James Bacon all face first-degree murder charges in connection to the massacre.

In announcing the charges, RCMP Assistant Commissioner Peter German said that while police have plenty of work left to do "this is a major step forward for public safety."

The latest shooting brings the death toll to 19 in 45 shooting incidents in the Metro Vancouver area since late January.