Three men with gang ties have been charged with first-degree murder for the August 2011 shooting death of Jonathon Bacon.
Bacon, a Red Scorpion gang member, was gunned down in a Porsche SUV outside of the Delta Okanagan resort alongside three other passengers.
Two of Bacon’s associates, Hells Angel Larry Amero and Independent Soldier James Riach, were wounded in the shootout, as was Leah Hadden-Watts, then 21, who was shot in the neck and left paralyzed.
Police say Bacon, Amaro and Riach were in Kelowna that weekend as part of crime alliance dubbed the “Wolf Pack.”
Jujhar Singh Khun-Khun, 25, Jason Thomas McBride, 37, and Michael Kerry Hunter Jones, 25, are now charged with first-degree murder. Each are also charged with four counts of attempted murder in the incident.
The announcement was made by members of B.C.'s Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit at a press conference in Delta, B.C.
Khun-Khun is well known to police, and was the target of a gangland shooting in 2011. He was critically injured in a Surrey shooting as he picked up a gangster from their Surrey home. Khun-Khun was shot again last month, in an incident that saw gangster Manjinder Singh Hairan executed, police added.
The three accused were arrested last week in simultaneous raids across Canada. Khun-Khun was picked up at his home in Surrey, McBride was arrested in Toronto and Jones was arrested in Vancouver.
Sgt. Lindsay Houghton, spokesperson for the CFSEU, said more than 100 police officers contributed to the 18-month investigation, dubbed “E-Nitrogen.”
Houghton said all of the men charged are linked to the late gangster Sukh Dhak, 28, a member of the Duhre crime group who was killed in a targeted attack with his bodyguard Thomas Mantel, 30, in Nov. 2012. Before his death police regularly warned that Dhak, who was on trial for drug trafficking, could be targeted by rivals following the fatal shooting of his brother outside of Metrotown Mall in 2010.
Duhre gang leader Sandip Duhre was gunned down in the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Vancouver on Jan. 16, 2012.
Monday’s arrests could usher in another spat of retaliation gun violence, said CFSEY Supt. Dan Malo.
“Whenever we disrupt the regular organized crime activities of these violent individuals there’s always some flow that comes from that, and we need to with our police intelligence community pay particular attention to that,” Malo said.
