Torched SUV now linked to deadly Vancouver shooting, police say
Vancouver police have now linked a deadly shooting in Kitsilano to an SUV found burning nearby hours after the killing.
Manoj Kumar, 30, was shot to death while sitting in a car parked on Burrard Street between West 4th and 5th avenues around 8:30 p.m. PT on Tuesday.
Friends and family say Kumar had just started a new job at a nearby restaurant, and had no connections to gangs.
Police said witnesses reported seeing a vehicle flee the area after shots were fired. Around midnight, a white Dodge Durango was found in flames on West 22nd Avenue at Yew Street — a little more than two kilometres south of the shooting scene.
Investigators said the vehicle had been set on fire. Investigators seized the SUV and it's now considered a vehicle of interest in the homicide investigation.
On Monday, police said they now believe the SUV is linked to Kumar's death. Investigators are asking anyone with dashcam video from the night of the shooting to call police, especially if they were driving in the Kitsilano or Arbutus areas of the city between 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. PT.
People who know Kumar say he had just left work at the Hideaway Eatery, where he'd recently started working as a chef, when he was shot. Friends say he normally called his spouse from the car before heading home.
Last week, Const. Jason Doucette said Kumar wasn't known to police and didn't "have any obvious connections to a criminal lifestyle."
Doucette told reporters the shooting "appears to have all the hallmarks of a targeted shooting," but that police were still working to determine a motive for the Vancouver man's death.
The victims' friends suspect the shooting was a case of mistaken identity.
