1 dead, 2 injured in shooting at Burnaby shopping complex
One man is dead and two more people are injured after a suspected targeted shooting sent diners scrambling for cover at a busy restaurant in Burnaby, B.C., on Thursday.
Burnaby RCMP and investigators from the gang team were called to the Market Crossing complex at Byrne Road and Marine Way shortly after 8:30 p.m. PT. Police on the scene told CBC News one person had been killed and two others were injured, including a woman.
All three people had been shot.
The shooting happened outside the Cactus Club Cafe patio, which was set up behind the restaurant at the edge of the parking lot. Customers sitting down to dinner on a warm, clear night suddenly ducked to the ground.
"It was really scary. We all ducked. I didn't know what to do.... People were flipping their tables to protect themselves," said server Holly Clark.
"Everyone outside, we just heard tables flipping and people scream. People started running because they didn't know what to do."
Shards of broken glass and abandoned plates of food littered the patio after the shooting.
RCMP said first responders tried to revive one of the men on scene, but he died of his injuries. The other two people who were shot were taken to hospital.
The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT) has been called in to work alongside Burnaby RCMP.
Police said the attack does not appear to have been random. RCMP are set to provide an update at 11 a.m. PT.
The Market Crossing complex includes a number of other restaurants, coffee shops, a grocery store and retail stores. Other witnesses who were in the area heard a series of gunshots and thought someone was lighting fireworks in the parking lot.
It's not yet confirmed whether the shooting is related to an escalating gang conflict in the Lower Mainland, which has seen at least seven men shot to death and several more injured in the last three weeks.
Some of the gunfire has broken out in some unusually public places.
A man well-known to police was shot dead just outside the departures terminal at Vancouver International Airport on Sunday. A B.C. corrections officer was killed in the parking lot outside a mall in Delta, B.C., on May 1, and another victim was fatally shot in front of a sportsplex in Langley on a weekday morning.
Manny Mann, head of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit of B.C., has said some of the violence is related to a gang war that dates back 15 years between the Red Scorpions, Independent Soldiers and Wolf Pack versus the United Nations.
The killing happened just hours after B.C. Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth met with representatives from police agencies to get a full sense of the "intolerable'' situation facing Lower Mainland communities as the gang conflict continues.
