SURREY - Mounties in Surrey placed a home and a gas station behind police tape early Saturday morning as they worked with homicide investigators to determine what happened in "an altercation" between two men overnight.
In a tweet, the Lower Mainland's Integrated Homicide Investigation Team said the incident occurred around 4:40 a.m. in the 18300 block of Fraser Highway. A 47-year-old man is dead and a second man is in custody, IHIT said, adding that they believe the two men knew each other.
Surrey RCMP said in a release that they were first called to the scene by BC Ambulance because a man was in medical distress after an alleged assault. Despite attempts to save his life, the man died at the scene, police said.
The incident is not believed to be gang-related, and there is no further risk to public safety, police said.
Video from the scene showed paramedics performing CPR on a person outside the home, which is not far from the intersection of Fraser Highway and 184 Street. Later, a sheet could be seen placed over a body in the same location.
A man who lives next door told CTV News Vancouver he knew the man who died.
“He’s a friend of mine. I’ve known him for 20 years,” said Martin McTaggert.
McTaggert said he woke up in the early hours of the morning to the sound of three people outside yelling and told them to be quiet before going back to bed.
“I heard some banging and I came back out,” he said. “And that’s when I saw my friend laying on the ground.”
McTaggert said one of the other people who had been yelling told him the victim had overdosed on drugs, but he doesn’t believe that.
"Something else must have happened because if it was an OD they would have just taken him to the hospital, you know what I mean? But, obviously something else occurred that I didn’t know about," he said.
Investigators spent much of the day Saturday using digital equipment to map the crime scene.
They also focused on a silver Volkswagen parked in front of the house.
Police have not identified the man killed or the man arrested. Nor have they said whether they’re looking into the possibility anyone else was involved.
