Victoria police say they seized a gun from Angus David Mitchell for mental health reasons in February, three months before he is suspected of killing two people at a restaurant and shooting his former landlord.
Mitchell, 26, was killed in a shootout with RCMP in a rural area of Maple Ridge on Wednesday after a massive police manhunt. He was accused of opening fire on his 51-year-old ex-landlord a day earlier.
The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team confirmed Friday that the gun seized from Mitchell after the shootout was the same one used to shoot the landlord and in a double homicide at a Burnaby sushi restaurant this weekend. But IHIT says their investigation is far from over and they cannot say for sure that Mitchell was the shooter in those incidents.
Victoria police also revealed Friday that they dealt with Mitchell this winter in connection to a Mental Health Act incident and seized a firearm from him. He later applied successfully to have the gun returned.
Police say they have made no links between the gun seizure and the ongoing investigation into Mitchell's activities, but the Vancouver Police Department has been called in to do an administrative review of the incident.
Mitchell had been working as a security guard in Victoria until a few weeks before the shootings on the Lower Mainland. He had held three contracts with Themis Security with the last one ending six weeks ago, according to owner Mirko Filippovic, who also said that Mitchell did not leave the company on bad terms.
However, a post that Mitchell made on the security company's Facebook in early May suggests his attitude toward his former employer had changed.
"Who gives a wink about you, Mirko?" he wrote. "Don't you ever try and talk to me as if you can give me an order. You do not deserve my attention. F--- YOU BASTARD."
CTV News has learned that Mitchell was fired from one security job in October, the same month he was evicted by the target of this week's shooting. The victim was seriously injured in that attack.
Investigators say they have not established a motive for the shooting that killed Royal Oak Sushi House waitress Chinh Diem Huynh and 36-year-old restaurant owner Huong (Andy) Tran on Sunday.
Before Mitchell was killed on Wednesday, police had warned that he was carrying a high-powered Mossberg Maverick rifle with a scope. They cautioned that anyone who knew Mitchell or had a conflict with him in the past, including former co-workers, employers, landlords and roommates, should be "extremely cautious about their personal safety."
