Bikers gathered on Vancouver Island last weekend for the annual ride in memory of missing Hells Angel Michael “Zeke” Mickle.
But some of them decided a limousine ride might be more comfortable than their Harleys.
Police saw the limo allegedly commit a traffic infraction and pulled it over on Highway 1 in Langford Saturday with six full-patch Hells Angels and four others inside.
They also found a loaded gun and drugs, according to West Shore RCMP.
A traffic stop by West Shore RCMP yielded a loaded handgun with several loaded magazines and various suspected drugs such as cocaine, marijuana and other suspected controlled substance in tablet forms. The 10 occupants of the limousine — six full patch Hells Angels and four associates — were arrested and later released.
“A subsequent search of the vehicle yielded a loaded handgun with several loaded magazines and various suspected drugs such as cocaine, marijuana and other suspected controlled substance in tablet forms,” Cst. Alex Bérubé said in a news release.
All 10 in the vehicle were arrested, but later released. Three have been ordered to appear in court in August to face charges.
No names have yet been released. Nor did police said what chapter the bikers were from.
Mounties are now preparing a report to Crown Counsel which will have recommendations for criminal charges.
The annual “Zeke” memorial ride is held in memory of Mickle, the Nanaimo Hells Angels president who disappeared in 1993 and is presumed dead.
Bérubé said police had local resources, as well as officers from the anti-gang Combine Forces Special Enforcement Unit monitoring this outlaw motorcycle ride.
“Criminal activity will not be tolerated in the West Shore community and we will strive to keep it safe,” Berube said.
The Hells Angels in B.C. recently expanded their presence by opening a 10th chapter called the Hardside.
Witness C finished his direct examination today and will be under cross-examination for the next four days.
There wasn’t any real bombshells today, though both Crown and defence were asking C about access he had to Crown disclosure in the earlier UN case that was smuggled out of Surrey pre-trial on a USB drive.
I have written about that smuggled drive, and included some information that was actually from yesterday about C’s efforts to have witness D murdered.
Here’s my story:
Ex-UN gangster says he read smuggled Crown documents
A former United Nations gangster says he had systems in place to smuggle items in and out of Surrey pre-trial for fellow UN members awaiting trial.
The man, who can only be identified as C due to a publication ban, testified at the murder trial of Cory Vallee, that he and others in the gang used a corrupt guard to get items in an out of the jail.
C said he would also prepare packages full of contraband and make them look like they came from a lawyer’s office so that they were protected by lawyer-client privilege and couldn’t be inspected.
One of the items smuggled out of the jail was a USB drive containing the Crown’s evidence against gang members and associates charged in 2009 with conspiracy to kill the Bacons, he said.
C said the guard gave the USB stick to UN gangster Troy Tran and Tran passed it to him – probably in 2011.
He said he was eager to see if there was evidence against him in the Crown disclosure that might result in him being charged in the Bacon conspiracy.
He has already admitted to B.C. Supreme Court Justice Janice Dillon that he was in a truck with Barzan Tilli-Choli and two others in the UN when Tilli-Choli opened fire on a Porsche belonging to the Bacon brothers on May 9, 2008.
Stereo installer Jonathan Barber, who had just picked up the SUV, was killed.
Vallee is charged with conspiracy to kill the Bacons, as well as first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of their pal Kevin LeClair.
C told prosecutor Helen James that he spent about a week going through the evidence on the USB, before giving the drive back to Tran, who has since been charged in the conspiracy himself.
C said he once met the corrupt guard himself, but didn’t know his name.
“I had to go give something to the guard to bring in to Michael Newman,” he said, in reference to a UN member now convicted of first-degree murder.
Michael Newman
C described the guard as a “Filippino” man of about average height and build.
A correctional officer named Sedrick Dang was charged in 2012 with breach of trust and accepting a bribe for smuggling contraband to UN members in the jail. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced in 2013 to four years in jail.
In the smuggled Crown documents, C said he read statements to police from another former UN member who can only be called D, who had had agreed to testify against the gang.
C said he then hired some Russian hit men to kill D, but they couldn’t complete the mission.
He also made contact with some members of the Rock Machine biker gang in 2011 to see if they could help kill D, he testified.
“Cory actually gave me a number to get a hold of [the Rock Machine,]” C said.
“I went out to Winnipeg and met with them. I told them we needed this hit done. Told them the bounty was 100,000 and asked if they had a member of the chapter out there that would be able to take care of it.”
The bikers also failed, he testified.
D was on the stand at the Vallee trial for almost three weeks before C began his testimony May 4.
Vallee defence lawyer Mike Tammen began his cross-examination of C Thursday.
He suggested that the witness had never known Vallee by the nickname “Frankie” despite the fact he testified that gang leader Clay Roueche introduced Vallee to him as Frankie.
“When Clay first introduced him, that’s how he introduced him,” C testified.
Cory Vallee defence lawyer Mike Tammen continued to methodically question Crown witness C about his decision to cooperate with police after “two decades” in a “life of crime.”
Tammen suggested repeatedly Friday that C was broke and needed a way out of his money woes which would come from cooperating. And he also suggested that police improperly showed C much of the evidence they had gathered against Vallee and others as they tried to convince C to cooperate.
That is generally an issue if it can be argued that a witness knew what to say because they had already seen what others told police. We have at least two more days of cross-examination.
I will close comments later tonight for the weekend as I will be out of town.
UN gang murder trial: Lawyer suggests witness ‘C’ testified to get out of money troubles
A defence lawyer for accused killer Cory Vallee suggested Friday that a former United Nations gangster was testifying against his client because the witness was broke and deeply in debt.
Mike Tammen grilled the man, who can only be identified as C due to a publication ban, about owing hundreds of thousands with no way to pay it back when he agreed to co-operate with the police last year.
One of the people C owed cash to was Vallee, who had given C $100,000 for safekeeping after he was arrested and charged with conspiracy to kill the Bacon brothers and the first-degree murder of their friend Kevin LeClair.
C has told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Janice Dillon that Vallee was a hired hitman brought in by the UN gang to kill the notorious siblings and their Red Scorpion associates.
And C testified earlier that Vallee confessed his role in the LeClair murder within a week of the fatal shooting on Feb. 6, 2009.
Tammen asked C whether he would have to repay Vallee the money if the accused killer were convicted in the LeClair murder.
“If he is doing life in prison, for instance for killing Kevin LeClair, you agree, he has got no ability to try and collect his debt from you?” Tammen asked.
C agreed.
“If Cory Vallee was acquitted, found not guilty of all criminal offences, he might — might — be able to make efforts to collect his money from you, right?” Tammen said.
“I think that would be a tough case,” C replied.
He agreed though that Vallee “could at least ask” for the money.
Tammen noted that C had amassed other debt as well prior to getting caught with 80,000 fentanyl pills and a gun in January 2016 and eventually agreeing to become a Crown witness.
The trial has already heard that C signed agreements with the RCMP to receive $400,000 for helping collect evidence in two investigations.
“Just before you were arrested, in the middle of January 2016, from your perspective, crime was no longer paying all that well,” Tammen asked.
C agreed that he could no longer make big money in the drug trade. At his peak, he was making about $500,000 a year, he testified.
In his good years, the money gave him a comfortable life, with time for snowboarding, golf and parties, C also agreed.
“You could afford at these parties to bring in escorts or prostitutes or visit them at massage parlours, right?” Asked Tammen.
“Right,” C replied.
Tammen also asked C about a presentation of evidence made to him by police in January 2016 that included statements made by other former UN members to police.
He suggested police influenced C to provide evidence specifically about Vallee and fugitive UN leader Conor D’Monte, who has been on the run since 2011.
“At one point, they told you that Conor D’Monte and Cory Vallee were the two guys to blame for all the violence,” Tammen said.
“I don’t recall,” C said.
C agreed, however, that police referred to Vallee as particularly violent, calling him an enforcer and a contract killer.
“The police … described Cory Vallee as a psycho and a psychopath. Do you remember that?”
“Yes,” said C.
C also knew police had a surveillance video of him from a Burnaby McDonald’s near where Jonathan Barber was shot to death on May 9, 2008. At the time, Barber was driving a vehicle owned by the Bacons.
“They told you that that (video) put you in what they called the shooter crowd for the Barber homicide,” Tammen said.
Police told him there was evidence of his role in the conspiracy to murder Barber, C said.
A man gunned down inside his vehicle near Granville and No. 2 roads in Richmond Sunday has been identified as Jasdeep Singh Klair, 24.
The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team is in charge of the murder probe.
S. Sgt. Jennifer Pound said “Klair is known to police and this shooting is believed to be targeted.”
Klair was shot about 2:25 p.m. Sunday and his vehicle then crashed nearby.
“From evidence and information received thus far, it appears there was a suspect vehicle in the Lindsay Road neighbourhood that fled the scene after shooting at Mr. Klair,” Pound said.
“It is believed that Mr. Klair was shot while driving in his vehicle and as a result of his injuries, lost consciousness, resulting in the car crash a short distance away on Granville Avenue. Despite many individuals in the area hearing the gunfire, police did not receive any calls to attend for shots fired, but rather were called for the car crash following the shooting.”
Klair was convicted of trafficking in October 2012 and got a nine-month conditional sentence. He also got a day in jail in May 2012 for possession of a controlled substance in Vancouver.
She said the suspect vehicle was located in the 4400-block of Thompson Road less than an hour after the shooting.
2010 Kia like the one used in Richmond shooting Sunday, May 14
The recovered vehicle was stolen from Surrey in March and is a 2010 orange or reddish Kia Forte. Pound said it is a unique car and that someone might have seen the suspect driving it.
“This homicide occurred in a heavily populated residential area at a busy time of day,” she said.
Anyone with information about the shooting should contact IHIT at 1-877-551-4448 or ihittipline@rcmp-grc.gc.ca.
Former United Nations gangster C spent his 8th day on the stand at the Cory Vallee murder trial Monday.
Under the skilful cross-examination of defence lawyer Mike Tammen, C was forced to admit that he inaccurately described visiting an associate at his Coal Harbour apartment after the murder of Kevin LeClair in February 2009.
C had said the AR-15 that was used to kill LeClair was one he was safekeeping for his drug associate Nguyen Minh Trung Do, along with a second AR-15.
He testified he had put the guns in his safe which he stored at Jesse “Egon” Atkins house. The AR-15s were not to be used, C said, adding that when he was told by Vallee he had used one in the LeClair murder, C was upset.
He said he knew he would have to compensate his friend “Trung” and that the second gun would also have to be gotten rid of.
The problem with his evidence about visiting Trung’s apartment to pay him the money, is that Trung was critically wounded in a Dec. 30, 2008 shooting in Mexico. He became a quadriplegic and was in VGH, followed by GF Strong for much of 2009 and therefore wouldn’t have been in his apartment able to count $10,000 cash.
When Trung was wounded, along with Brendhan Stowe, we covered it at the time. We knew they had gang links, but did not know those links were UN.
Ex-UN gangster denies he supplied gun to kill Bacon brothers’ associate Kevin LeClair
Jamie Bacon (left) and Kevin LeClair, who was shot to death in 2009.
A defence lawyer suggested Monday that a former United Nations gangster provided the assault rifle used to kill Kevin LeClair, despite the man claiming the murder weapon came from an associate.
Mike Tammen, lawyer for accused killer Cory Vallee, grilled the former UN member over the origins of the AR-15 used in the February 2009 killing.
Earlier, the witness, who can only be identified as C due to a sweeping publication ban, claimed the gun had been taken from a safe without his knowledge while he was holding it for a drug trade associate named Nguyen Minh Trung Do.
C told Justice Janice Dillon that he was involved in some “business” with Do, who he referred to as “Trung” throughout his testimony.
Vallee is charged with conspiracy to kill the Bacon brothers over several months in 2008 and 2009, as well as the first-degree murder of their associate LeClair.
C is the second of four former UN gangsters-turned Crown witnesses testifying against Vallee.
He has already testified that Vallee told him within a week of the LeClair murder that he had killed him using the AR-15.
C testified that he had to compensate Trung $10,000 for the assault rifle used in the hit, as well as a second AR-15 that also had to be discarded afterwards.
He claimed Monday that he went to Trung’s Coal Harbour apartment after the slaying to pay him in cash.
“Did you communicate with him through BlackBerry to let him know you were coming?” Tammen asked.
“Most likely, yes,” C replied.
Asked Tammen: “When you gave him the money, did he count it?”
Probably, C said.
Tammen then noted that Trung had been paralyzed from the neck down in a nightclub shooting in Mexico in December 2008 and was still in Vancouver’s GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre for months after the LeClair shooting.
Nguyen Minh Trung Do, after he was paralyzed in a 2008 shooting in Mexico
And he accused C of lying at the trial about the true owner of the AR-15.
“Those were your guns … not Trung’s. Would you agree?” Tammen asked.
“No, I would not,” C replied.
Tammen suggested C “made up this story about storing the guns for Trung to distance yourself from the actual guns used to kill LeClair. Isn’t that right?”
C again denied Tammen’s claim, although he admitted he couldn’t recall details of how and when he paid the compensation to his friend, who later died of a drug overdose.
Now in his eighth day on the stand at the judge-alone trial, C has admitted he provided the loaded AK-47 that were used to kill stereo installer Jonathan Barber on May 9, 2008 as he drove a Porsche owned by the Bacons.
That night, he was in the front passenger seat of a truck driven by Jesse “Egon” Adkins when UN gangster Barzan Tilli-Choli blasted the AK-47 at the Porsche from the back seat of the truck, he testified.
They mistakenly thought they had killed Jamie Bacon.
Barzan Tilli-Choli in undated jail photo
Tammen asked C why he hadn’t tried to stop Tilli-Choli when he saw him roll down the window just before the shooting on Kingsway in Burnaby.
“You could have said, ‘Don’t do it. It’s not the time,’” Tammen said.
“I could have,” C said, agreeing that he had not tried to stop the hit.
Gang murder cases like the Surrey Six and the United Nations conspiracy are extremely challenging for police. We heard in the Surrey Six case that some of the former gangsters-turned-witnesses were paid money by the RCMP for their cooperation.
The same thing has happened in the UN case with some details now out through testimony at the Cory Vallee murder trial.
“D,” who testified last month against Vallee, said he was paid $300,000. And now “C” – a one-time UN leader who admitted to involvement in several murder conspiracies – has testified about two “agent agreements” he signed with the Mounties to be paid a total of $400,000 for 20 days work last August.
Ex-UN gangster worked 20 days for $400,000 in deal with Mounties
To get $400,000 from police, an ex-United Nations gangster was only required to send encrypted messages to his former leader and arrange two meetings with a second criminal to try to get incriminating information.
Details of two police agent deals between the RCMP and the former gangster were revealed in B.C. Supreme Court Tuesday at the murder trial of Cory Vallee.
The witness, who can only be identified as C due to a sweeping publication ban, signed the agreements, worth $200,000 each, in August 2016, after he had already committed to be a Crown witness in the Vallee trial.
Vallee is charged with conspiracy to kill the Bacon brothers over several months in 2008 and 2009, as well as first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of their associate Kevin LeClair in February 2009.
C told Justice Janice Dillon earlier that Vallee was involved in the Bacon hunt and admitted to C that he shot LeClair within a week of the murder.
Defence lawyer Mike Tammen questioned C about the financial arrangement he made with police to aid in two investigations over three weeks last summer.
Tammen noted that in the first deal, C’s only task was to send encrypted messages through his BlackBerry to UN leader Conor D’Monte so police could try to locate the fugitive, who is wanted for murder.
“You told the police that possibly through these BlackBerry communications that you could assist them in tracking down or locating the whereabouts of D’Monte. Right?” Tammen asked.
“Right,” C replied.
FILE PHOTO Conor Vincent D’Monte. Integrated Homicide Investigation Team news conference to announce UN gangsters face charges in the murders of Jonathan Barber and Kevin LeClair in Burnaby on Monday, January 24, 2011.
C agreed with Tammen that D’Monte never would have admitted where he was in a message, but that the RCMP had some technological method of attempting to track his location.
“As far as you know the agency work vis-à-vis Conor D’Monte didn’t yield anything in terms of police locating him?” Tammen asked.
“Not as far as I know,” C replied.
In the second agent agreement for $200,000, C said he was involved in two police “scenarios” involving a man named Kelly Hurst.
C testified earlier that he asked Hurst in 2011 to attack some Metro Vancouver homes of people he later learned were linked to the Justice Institute.
At the time, he had been asked by D’Monte to target the houses with shootings and fire bombings on behalf of a friend of the fugitive’s, C said.
He said he split the payments for the attacks with Hurst.
The RCMP wanted more evidence against Hurst and created two scenarios for C to meet with Hurst to try to get admissions, C testified.
“And the nature of the exercise was to try to get him to admit something about his involvement in that?” Tammen asked.
C agreed that the goal was to get “evidence out of Kelly’s mouth.”
Cory Vallee
He also agreed that the work he did on the Hurst case for his second $200,000 payment has not resulted in any charges.
C has only been paid about half the $400,000 he expects to make for his assistance to the police.
He said that in addition to his evidence at the Vallee trial, he is expected to be called as a Crown witness at the 2018 trial of Troy Tran and Billy Ly, two other UN gangsters charged with conspiracy to kill the Bacons.
And he said he would also be testifying against D’Monte if he is ever found.
C isn’t the only Crown witness to have received money from the RCMP as part of its investigation into the notorious gang.
Witness D, another former UN member, testified earlier at the Vallee trial that he has been paid $300,000 for his cooperation in the case.
A B.C. man has been charged with the brazen afternoon slaying outside a Surrey hotel in March.
Johnny Steven Drynock, 22, is facing one count of first-degree murder in the March 13 shooting of Birinderjeet Justin Bhangu in the parking lot of the Comfort Inn Hotel.
Drynock remains in custody in Kamloops after being charged with three firearms offences last month in Merritt.
“Following two months of exhaustive work and intensive evidence gathering, the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team has received charge approval for first degree murder against Mr. Drynock,” Staff Sgt. Jennifer Pound said Wednesday. “The media and the public played an integral role in assisting IHIT identify the suspect and ensuring any issues surrounding public safety were not overlooked.”
Drynock is scheduled to make his first court appearance in Surrey on Friday, Pound said.
She said the investigation remains on-going and that IHIT is looking for information on possible criminal links and the motive for the murder.
Bhangu’s killer was captured on video surveillance cameras focused on the hotel parking lot.
Bhangu was in the driver’s seat of an Acura MDX when his suspected shooter backed into a nearby parking spot in a Nissan Pathfinder about 2:20 in the afternoon.
The suspect was seen in video exited his vehicle and approaching the driver’s side of the Acura.
He began firing shots at Bhangu at 2:24 p.m., IHIT said in an earlier release.
The suspect then ran back to his vehicle and fled the parking lot west bound making a right hand turn onto Fraser Hwy.
Police found the Pathfinder used in the murder in Kelowna on March 14.
Bhangu, 29, was a well-known gangster with links to some of the recent violence in the Lower Mainland. He had a criminal record dating back more than a decade driving offences, property crimes and drug trafficking.
His family issued a statement through IHIT Wednesday:
“This devastating incident is something that has changed our lives forever; it is with heavy hearts that we mourn the loss of our son, our brother and our friend,” it said.
“Birinder was a very loving, respectful and warm hearted individual who did not deserve to be taken from us so soon in this horrendous way.”
There was a new witness on the stand at the Cory Vallee murder trial Thursday. “B” is the third former United Nations gangster to testify against Vallee and others in his former gang.
While he hasn’t yet gotten into the meat of his evidence, it was interesting to listen to his rationale in deciding to cooperate with police.
He didn’t think they had a strong case against him. He had left the UN and was living a normal life.
But he knew that his old life could still come back to haunt him. And so he flipped.
He also testified that he asked police for money but was told they couldn’t pay for testimony. They can only pay an agent to assist, like they did with C, or pay to help someone with their security, as they did with D.
Another ex-UN gangster testifies against alleged killer Cory Vallee
A former United Nations gangster who turned away from his criminal past years ago agreed to cooperate with police in 2016 because he feared going to prison for life.
The man, who can only be identified as B due to a publication ban, began his testimony at the Cory Vallee murder trial in B.C. Supreme Court Thursday.
He is the third former member of the notorious gang to turn Crown witness against Vallee, who’s charged with conspiracy to kill the Bacon brothers over several months in 2008 and 2009, as well as the first-degree murder of their pal Kevin LeClair in February 2009.
B said after leaving the UN several years ago and working a legitimate job, he was arrested in 2016 in connection with the murder of Jonathan Barber on May 9, 2008 and the fatal shooting of LeClair on Feb. 6, 2009.
He told Justice Janice Dillon that the RCMP did a presentation about their evidence in the cases while he was briefly in their custody.
While he felt the case was weak and he was later released from jail without being charged, he began exploring their suggestion that he cooperate against his former gang mates.
He said that he feared that if he didn’t cooperate, the police would continue trying to flip others who might implicate him.
And B testified that just by releasing him without charges, police were “basically insinuating I was possibly making a deal,” putting him in potential danger from others in the UN.
He said he understood police tactics because of “previous conversations I had with other members of our organization.”
“[Police] would try to get people to flip by saying get on the train before the train leaves the station,” B said. “I was worried. I was worried the police would manipulate everybody to turn on each other.”
B noted that he was picked up by police in January 2016, around the same time as former UN member turned Crown witness C and Troy Tran and Billy Ly – two other UN gangsters who were later charged with conspiracy to kill the Bacons.
“I thought it was a strategic game by the police trying to manipulate all the players. My general sense is they profiled us and basically they saw me – that I went legit and I was removed from the gang and I would be an easy target against others,” B testified.
B is expected to testify that he was nearby during the LeClair murder, but had no direct involvement.
Even after he split from the gang and started a new life, B said he was always concerned he might be arrested one day.
“Basically from the time of the murders until the time I was arrested and after – there wasn’t a day that didn’t go by that I wasn’t worried about the police coming,” he said.
“I would think about simple things like just the convenience of life – what a beautiful sunny day it is when I am on my way to work, how much I like the comfort of my bed,” B testified.
He also said that he knew once he agreed to cooperate, he could be targeted with violence or death by the UN, which he described as “a dead end lifestyle.”
“Once I became legitimate, I really enjoyed it, I didn’t have to look over my shoulder,” he testified.
Crown prosecutors in the trial of three men charged with killing gangster Jonathan Bacon were supposed to begin calling their evidence on May 24 in a Kelowna courtroom.
But that has now been delayed until the following week.
Dan McLaughlin, who speaks for B.C. prosecutors, confirmed Friday that defence lawyers will continue their pre-trial fight to get the charges dropped due to the length of time it has taken for the trial to begin.
Those legal arguments, made on behalf of accused killers Jujhar Singh Khun-Khun, Jason McBride and Michael Jones, continued all this week in front of B.C. Supreme Court Justice Allan Betton.
Abbotsford, BC – June 6, 2008 – Jonathan Bacon outside Abbotsford provincial court.
Because the defence lawyers did not finish their submissions, they will continue after the long weekend, McLaughlin said.
The trio were charged in February 2013 and have been in custody for more than four years. Last summer, the Supreme Court of Canada set a 30-month time limit for completing trials at the Supreme Court level unless there are “exceptional circumstances.”
I have a long feature on the upcoming trial being published in the Sunday Province. I will link to it once it’s online.
I wrote this article setting up the trial of Jujhar Khun-Khun, Jason McBride and Michael Jones, which was supposed to start in Kelowna March 24.
The evidence in the trial is now expected to begin the following week and I will head up to the Okanagan for the first two weeks.
Interestingly, I learned some things from the Cory Vallee trial about the men accused of killing Jonathan Bacon – such as that the UN has been paying their canteen money since their arrest, according to witness C. More details are below.
As this is the long weekend, I am closing comments for a couple of days so I can enjoy this nice weather!
Bacon murder took gang war to the streets of Kelowna
It was a public execution that shook Kelowna to its core.
On a sunny Sunday afternoon in August 2011, outside a popular hotel and casino, a Porsche Cayenne carrying gangsters from Metro Vancouver was sprayed by gunfire.
When the shooting stopped, notorious Red Scorpion Jonathan Bacon was dead, his Hells Angels pal Larry Amero was seriously wounded, and their Independent Soldier associate James Riach was grazed and in shock.
Two young women in the white luxury SUV were also wounded — Leah Hadden-Watts was struck in the neck and paralyzed, and Lyndsey Black was hit in the leg.
The public gunplay left local residents stunned and police across B.C. scrambling to find those responsible and contain retaliatory violence.
Eighteen months later, three men linked to a rival gang — Jujhar Singh Khun-Khun, Jason Thomas McBride and Michael Kerry Jones — were charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder.
Their judge-alone trial is scheduled to begin on May 29 before Justice Allan Betton, who was appointed to the B.C. Supreme Court just two months before the Kelowna shooting.
Former mayor Sharon Shepherd still remembers that devastating day when her community was rocked by the unprecedented gang violence.
Residents sitting on patios nearby were almost caught in the gunfire, she said. The art gallery was hit with one of the bullets. City hall is only half a block away.
“There were mothers walking with children nearby,” Shepherd said.
Police crime scene outside the Delta hotel and casino where Jonathan Bacon was gunned down on Aug. 14, 2011. The daytime violence shook the community.DON SIPOS / FOR PNG
Then there were the workers at the Delta Grand Hotel where the Porsche had been parked just before the shooting.
“Certainly it was very emotional and worrisome to the community when the incident happened, and I certainly know there was a lot of talk among those who were working at the Grand at the time,” said Shepherd.
“This really was something unsettling for our community that we hadn’t experienced up to that time. … It made us feel quite vulnerable.”
She said the coming trial, expected to last months, will force the city to relive that terrible day.
“It’s too bad it has taken so long to come to a trial, because it kind of brings back all the memories again for those who were there,” she said.
Long before the Bacon murder, city officials and the RCMP were aware that Lower Mainland gangs had opened up shop in the lakeside resort community. The Hells Angels started a Kelowna chapter in 2007. Gangs had infiltrated some local businesses and efforts were made to shut them down, Shepherd said.
“I stood up, maybe nervously at times, to say the individuals weren’t welcome in our community,” she said.
But before Aug. 14, 2011, gangsters in Kelowna were “quite quiet,” the former mayor recalled.
“It certainly was a shock to have that shooting take place.”
The Kelowna hit was not as shocking to anti-gang investigators with the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit.
They had been watching Bacon, his younger brothers Jarrod and Jamie, and their Red Scorpion gang for years, both as potential targets for violence and as suspects in a litany of crimes ranging from drug trafficking to murder.
At the time of the Kelowna shooting, the two younger Bacon brothers were in jail awaiting trial.
The CFSEU had issued warnings to the public to steer clear of the siblings in case they were shot at. Some members of the rival United Nations gang were already charged with plotting to kill them and were being held in pre-trial custody.
Police were also aware that Jonathan Bacon, Amero and Riach had formed a loose gang alliance they had dubbed the “Wolf Pack.”
Pat Fogarty, then a superintendent with the special unit, said this week that the Bacon murder was not “a well-planned event,” but came from a chance sighting.
After the shooting, the suspects fled in a greenish Ford Explorer that was later discovered charred and abandoned.
“They helped the police gods in leaving evidence all the way up the trail with the burning of the car,” said Fogarty, now CEO of Fathom Research Group.
“My understanding was that … there was an opportunity. They saw Amero there and they saw Bacon there, made a phone call (and were told), ‘Go up and get ’em. We got them at a particular spot.’
“And then they mustered a crew together and they went from there.”
At the time, gangsters were ahead of police on the technology front, said Fogarty, using encryption programs on their BlackBerrys that allowed them to communicate freely about murders and other criminal business.
“Every single bad guy was on these encrypted things and they would just drop them at the end of the day or just wipe them. It was quite interesting stuff,” Fogarty said.
Police couldn’t get court orders for servers being used since they were located out of the country.
“They would talk very openly on these things,” Fogarty said.
“There was a series of shootings and retaliations and we had this ongoing sort of war that developed from there.”
Jonathan Bacon outside Abbotsford court in 2008, where he was facing drug and weapons charges. His high-profile murder three years later was just one of several bouts of violence linked to an alleged drug turf war.RICK COLLINS / FOR PNG
Within a month of the Bacon murder, there were more police warnings and retaliatory strikes.
Khun-Khun, already a suspect, was shot in September 2011 outside the home of his gang leader Sukh Dhak — who himself would later fall victim to the “Wolf Pack war” in November 2012 in Burnaby.
Khun-Khun survived the 2011 shooting, only to be targeted again in January 2013.
Miraculously, the man nicknamed “Giani” (or priest) survived the second shooting too. His associate Manny Hairan, another suspect in the Bacon murder, wasn’t as lucky. He died instantly.
For months before Hairan was shot to death in Surrey, he had been secretly helping police in the Bacon investigation — dubbed E-Nitrogen.
After his death, there were more shootings and more murders.
“This war was going on tit-for-tat,” Fogarty said.
But the conflict between the Wolf Pack and those who police dubbed the Dhak-Duhre-UN group didn’t begin in Kelowna.
It was a spin-off conflict from one that started years earlier in Abbotsford, when the UN gang put bounties on the heads of the Bacons and their associates.
That UN hunt — or “human safari” as it was described in court — resulted in the murders of several men linked to the brothers. Jonathan Bacon was seriously wounded when the UN shot him outside his family home in the fall of 2006.
A former UN gang leader, who can only be identified as C due to a publication ban, recently testified at the Cory Vallee murder trial about his gang’s efforts to recruit new members after several were arrested in 2009. Vallee is charged with killing Bacon pal Kevin LeClair and plotting to kill the Bacons in 2008 and 2009.
C testified that a respected UN elder named Manh “Versace” Nguyen brought a young gangster named Billy Tran into the UN fold. Tran became a member and was presented with UN rings.
Tran operated his own drug lines along with his close associates — brothers Gurmit and Sukh Dhak. While the Dhaks never joined the UN, C said, they did become official “associates.”
The problem with granting UN membership to a gangster with his own underworld history is that you take on all his “beefs” and enemies.
In the case of Tran and the Dhaks, there were many.
On October 2010, Gurmit Dhak was with his wife and young kids at Burnaby’s Metrotown Mall when a gunman approached. Dhak was killed in front of his devastated family.
Several others were injured, including two women, in the fatal shooting of Jonathan Bacon in Kelowna in August 2011. One of the women, who was paralyzed, is suing over her life-altering injuries.DON SIPOS / FOR PNG
No one has ever been charged in Dhak’s murder, but the assassin is believed to be from the Wolf Pack side, thus dragging the UN into the new war even if some original members were reluctant.
Police were on high alert the day of Dhak’s memorial service. Anti-gang police officers were following Tran and Jason McBride, one of the accused who will go on trial this month, as they left the service and drove to Vancouver’s Kensington Park for a meeting.
Police moved in. Two of the gangsters present had firearms and a photo of a rival who the cops believe was the next murder target. The plot was foiled and Tran soon left Canada for Vietnam.
In February 2013, Khun-Khun, McBride and Jones were arrested in the Kelowna murder.
C testified that he paid money every month into the jailhouse accounts of all three so they could buy snacks and other items in the canteen.
He said he got the money from Versace, who also fled Canada as the police investigation into the UN ramped up.
C was reluctant to keep up the payments because he was worried it would link him to the Bacon conspiracy and leave “the impression I was paying to keep them happy.”
While C insisted he had nothing to do with the Kelowna murder, he admitted that he and others in the UN had uploaded photographs and other information about Bacon, Amero and Riach to an online site called Photo Bucket.
Defence lawyer Mike Tammen asked C about the intelligence-sharing method.
“You were posting those photos on Photo Bucket so that people that were interested — I suppose people on your side of the Wolf Pack war — would know what people on the other side of the Wolf Pack war would look like?” he asked.
“Right,” C replied.
Like C, there are other former gangsters who have co-operated with police and are expected to testify at the Kelowna trial.
It is not known if any of the other victims in the Porsche Cayenne that day will take the stand.
Amero, the Hells Angel, remains in jail in Montreal facing cocaine importing charges. He is due to go to trial in July, but is applying to have the case thrown out over delays.
Independent Soldier Riach was charged with drug trafficking in the Philippines in 2014, but a judge later freed him due to problems with the investigation. He is believed to be living in Greece.
Hadden-Watts, the most seriously injured of the survivors, is continuing with a lawsuit she filed against all three accused, as well as the Delta Grand and neighbouring casino, seeking damages for her life-altering injuries.
Hadden-Watts declined an interview this week about the murder trial finally starting.
“It is very difficult for me to talk about what has happened,” she said. “I’m trying my best to move forward from the incident.”
Fogarty, the retired Mountie, said police deserve a lot of credit for the work they did on E-Nitrogen.
“When police start squeezing various components within (the suspect) group, eventually they fall,” he said. “But it takes a long time for that to happen.
“I do believe we had a lot of success back then through a lot of tiring and long work. The results didn’t come easy. It didn’t start overnight and it’s not going to be resolved overnight.”
There was more gun violence on the Lower Mainland Monday with a murder in East Vancouver and shooting in Surrey.
A 33-year old woman died after being shot just after 5 p.m. Monday near East 7th Avenue and St. Catherines Street.
Vancouver Police Const. Jason Doucette said officers responded to a call of shots fired and found Janice Nicole Bryant suffering from gunshot wounds.
The 33-year-old died later in hospital. She has no criminal record in B.C., according to the online court database.
“No arrests have been made yet. Based on the information collected so far, investigators do not believe this was a random shooting,” Doucette said. “This is Vancouver’s 8th homicide in 2017.”
Anyone with information is asked to call the VPD’s Major Crime Section at 604-717-2500.
Meanwhile Surrey RCMP is investigating a shooting near a townhouse complex in the area of 75 Ave and 140 Street about 10:30 p.m. Monday.
“A vehicle was struck and there were no injuries. At this time it is not known if the shooting was targeted,” Sgt. Dale Jackson. “Surrey General Investigation Unit is investigating and has released the scene.”
The Cory Vallee murder trial is on a week-long break and will also be down for three weeks in June. So it looks like the trial will continue into September.
Over the last three weeks at the trial, I heard some disturbing details of a plot to kill me, which I left out of my daily reports. However after discussing all of the evidence with my editors, we decided I should write about this in a first-person report.
Murder plot against reporter Kim Bolan revealed at UN gang trial
The Cory Vallee murder trial has offered a fascinating glimpse into the violent world of the notorious United Nations gang and its targets.
UN members-turned-Crown witnesses have testified that the gang plotted against rivals, killed young street-level dealers, and even arranged a hit on one of its own members, who was hiding out in Mexico.
One of those witnesses, a man who can only be identified as C due to a publication ban, also described discussions he had with the gang’s leader in 2011 about killing me.
It was almost 4 p.m. on May 4 when Crown prosecutor Helen James asked C about those discussions. I was the only reporter in the courtroom.
“At some point during your career with the UN, you discussed with Conor D’Monte the possibility of killing a journalist. Is that correct?”
Replied C: “That’s correct.”
He said D’Monte, a senior UN member who is now a fugitive, had gotten the address of the journalist “through a property check.”
“Who is the journalist?” James asked.
“Kim Bolan,” C replied.
(A police contact told me last month that information involving a threat might come out at the trial, but I didn’t know exactly what would be said.)
Although I’ve had threats before, it is still disturbing that in Canada, journalists can be at risk for violence or death just for doing our jobs.
Generally, Canadian reporters work in an environment envied by our colleagues in places like Mexico, Iraq or Syria.
On May 15, Javier Valdez was gunned down in Culiacán, Mexico, where he had been bravely reporting on the Sinaloa cartel and victims of its violence for years.
In March, after the murder of his colleague, Valdez tweeted: “Let them kill us all, if that is the death sentence for reporting this hell. No to silence.”
He is the sixth Mexican journalist slain this year.
Writing about threats as a Canadian journalist seems trite compared to what others around the world face in exposing organized crime, government corruption or violent extremists.
And besides, I am a hard-nose news type. Nothing makes me cringe more than inserting myself into a story. My earlier threats have gone unreported, such as the time in February 2009 when a dead rat shoved into a Ziploc arrived in the newsroom in a dripping envelope addressed to me. It contained a note saying I would be killed if I didn’t stop my gang reporting.
I thought long and hard about writing these details of C’s testimony. After talking to my editors, we decided it was important for readers to know.
So back to courtroom 66.
Jamie Bacon (left) and Kevin LeClair in an undated photo. LeClair was killed in a Langley parking lot in February 2009.PNG FILES
The only others present were undercover police, sheriffs, 10 lawyers, the court clerk and Justice Janice Dillon. And of course there was Vallee, accused of conspiracy to kill the Bacon brothers, as well as the murder of their pal Kevin LeClair.
C explained that D’Monte had given him my address and that he “stopped by there twice.”
“And what was the plan?” James asked.
“Part of the thought was that we had a lot of scrutiny onto us. If we were going to proceed with killing her, that it be done during the Surrey Six trial to make it look like maybe the RS did it,” he said, referencing the rival Red Scorpion gang.
“And what were the UN’s feelings towards Kim Bolan? Why would they want to possibly kill her?” James asked.
“They just hated all the attention. They hated all the attention and the way she reported on our gang,” he said.
He said the UN objected to my reporting because they thought I was “giving other gangs a lot of intel on us, which we didn’t like.”
They called off the plan because “the police attention we would get from doing that wouldn’t have been worth it.”
He also talked about my blog, The Real Scoop, which I started in 2008 just as the Lower Mainland gang war was heating up. I post stories on the blog and readers post comments, although I go through them daily and delete some.
“Sometimes other people would post information we didn’t previously know on the blog,” C said.
He also posted comments.
“What sort of thing would you write on there?” James asked.
“False information,” he said. “To, I guess, throw the police or the general public off of … who the real suspects are at certain times.”
He said that after the LeClair murder in February 2009 and the slaying of Jonathan Barber in May 2008, he wrote anonymous comments suggesting the Bacon brothers were behind the killings.
While I don’t remember the comments C claims to have written, if he named someone as a suspect, I would have deleted the allegation.
C agreed with James that he hoped by posting false information “the police would check the blog and be thrown off and start investigating other suspects.”
“I was trying to take the attention off the UN.”
A few days later under cross-examination, C provided more details to defence lawyer Mike Tammen.
C said he had driven up my block and down the alley behind my house.
He agreed that scouting out my house “was to try to confirm the intelligence or information that Conor had received and passed on.”
“If you were able to confirm, it would make any plan to carry out this killing at least a little bit more feasible. Right?” Tammen asked.
“Yep,” C replied.
Listening to this evidence after hearing C testify about smashing the face of a debtor with a sledgehammer and arranging the cartel hit of a close UN friend was somewhat chilling.
But I also felt a sense of detachment. I had never met C or D’Monte.
Writing about the UN and the murders linked to the gang is part of my job.
And it’s a job I will continue to do because it’s important to shine a light on these dark corners in our community, even when I don’t like what I see.
Former B.C. resident and long-time gangster Rabih “Robby” Alkhalil was convicted in Toronto of first-degree murder May 11 and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years.
I thought that might mean there would be no trial for Alkhalil on the other murder charge he faces in the 2012 Vancouver slaying of Sandip “Dip” Duhre.
But the spokesman for B.C. Crown prosecutors says the Vancouver trial will go ahead.
There are other suspects in the Duhre murder, but almost five years later, only Alkhalil has been charged.
Convicted killer will go to trial in Vancouver gangland murder, Crown says
He has already been convicted of one organized crime murder in Ontario and sentenced to life in jail.
But Rabih “Robby” Alkhalil will still be prosecuted here in B.C. on a first-degree murder charge in another gangland slaying.
B.C. Prosecution Service spokesman Dan McLaughlin confirmed that the Crown intends to proceed with its case against Alkhalil, who is charged with first-degree murder in the 2012 shooting of Sandip Duhre in Vancouver.
“At this point, the B.C. Prosecution Service will be continuing their efforts to prosecute Mr. Alkahlil for offences he is alleged to have committed in B.C.,” Dan McLaughlin said.
Rabih “Robby” Alkhalil
He said Alkhalil is scheduled to be brought to Vancouver for a court appearance on July 4 in the Duhre case.
Duhre was executed in the lobby of the Sheraton Wall Centre on Jan. 17, 2012 after months of conflict between his group of gangsters and their rivals in the Wolf Pack alliance.
The violence had led to several police warnings to stay away from Duhre and his associates.
Alkhalil, 30, grew up in B.C. before relocating to Ontario after the murder of two of his brothers here.
He is suspected of having paid a hit man named Dean Wiwchar to kill Duhre, although Alkhalil is the only suspect charged so far.
Both Alkhalil and Wiwchar, along with two others, were convicted in Toronto on May 11 of the June 2012 murder in Little Italy of Johnny Raposo.
They were sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
Alkhalil’s lawyer Sol Friedman did not respond Wednesday to an interview request on whether his client intends to appeal the Ontario conviction.
Murder suspects don’t always have a second prosecution if already convicted and serving a life sentence.
After B.C. serial killer Robert Pickton was convicted in the murders of six women in 2007, prosecutors made the decision to stay 20 other murder charges that had been laid against him.
Former B.C. Attorney-General Wally Oppal said the Pickton case was unique in that staying the second set of charges cleared the way for the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry to proceed.
“The reason the Crown didn’t prosecute Pickton on the remaining murders was two-fold: One, he was already doing six life terms, so he was never ever going to get out on parole. The better reason for not prosecuting Pickton on the remaining charges was it allowed for the commission of inquiry to go ahead,” Oppal said Wednesday.
The inquiry looked at how police failed to catch Pickton years earlier and “also gave an opportunity for all the families to be heard and talk about what they have gone through,” Oppal said.
He said that in B.C., prosecutions only proceed when there is a substantial likelihood of conviction and when it is in the public interest to do so.
“That’s a factor they have to weigh. So maybe somebody in the ministry thinks it is in the public interest to prosecute (Alkhalil),” Oppal said.
Some details of the Duhre investigation were revealed during a related 2015 prosecution of Wiwchar on several firearms charges.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Gregory Bowden noted that Vancouver Police had linked a getaway car used in the Duhre hit to Wiwchar and that witnesses described the shooter, who hid his appearance with a scarf and toque, as having the same height and build as the convicted hitman.
And police had an informant who said someone named Alkhalil had paid Wiwchar. Investigators later found $140,000 in Wiwchar’s safe deposit box, Bowden noted.
Glenn Sheck’s long battle to fight off extradition to the U.S. on money laundering charges continues.
The gang associate, who was convicted in Surrey of carrying a loaded Glock in his man purse, just lost a B.C. Supreme Court application to get disclosure from the RCMP about the agency’s role in aiding the U.S. investigation against him.
He will now go to a “committal hearing,” which is the next step in the extradition process.
Sheck was close to the late drug smuggler Tom Gisby, who was shot to death in Mexico in April 2012.
Here’s my latest story:
Court rules against B.C. man accused of money laundering in U.S.
A B.C. Supreme Court judge has ruled against a local man charged with laundering millions of drug profits in the U.S.
Glenn Harley Sheck had tried to get an extradition application by the U.S. thrown out on the grounds that American police worked undercover in Canada during their investigation, which his lawyer argued might have been illegal.
And Sheck had requested additional disclosure about how the RCMP assisted the Americans when they met him on three occasions in Metro Vancouver back in 2012.
But Justice Nathan Smith ruled that the Americans were in Canada legally and that the evidence they gathered on this side of the border was only a small part of the case against Sheck.
“The U.S. agents entered Canada legally and acted with at least the knowledge and assistance of Canadian authorities. Further, the Canadian-gathered evidence is relatively insignificant in the context of all of the alleged transactions the requesting state relies upon,” Smith said in a decision released this week. “Because of that relative insignificance, there is no basis on which to suggest that defects in how that evidence was gathered would sufficiently taint the entire process to require the exceptional remedy of a stay.”
Sheck’s case will now go to a “committal hearing” to determine whether he should be sent to the U.S. for trial.
Sheck allegedly coordinated dozens of transfers of cash between June 2007 and April 2012, believed to be the proceeds of a drug trafficking organization.
He also boasted to the undercover officer about being a big-time B.C. gangster, about funding terrorism and about corrupting officials, according to the “record of the case” filed to support the extradition request.
The money-laundering offences are alleged to have occurred while Sheck was out on bail facing a firearms possession charge on which he was eventually convicted and sentenced to 18 months in jail.
“The U.S. alleges 26 transactions in which undercover (Homeland Security Investigations) agents and a ‘cooperating witness’ received and transferred large amounts of cash on instructions from Mr. Sheck. Most of those transactions involved instructions, contained in electronic messages, that money be picked up at various locations in the United States and delivered to locations in California,” Smith noted in his ruling.
“There are three alleged transactions in which cash was received in Canada. Mr. Sheck argues that, in receiving that cash, the (Homeland Security) agent and the cooperating witness committed a criminal offence unless they were acting under the direction of Canadian police.”
Smith quoted from the allegations listed in the record of the case about the Canadian transactions.
The first B.C. meeting took place between Sheck and the American officer on Feb. 9, 2012, “to discuss the seizure by U.S. law enforcement of $359,000 following one of the transactions alleged to have taken place in the U.S.,” Smith noted.
At a second meeting in Surrey a few days later, Sheck gave the U.S. agent a bag containing $29,680 to be deposited in a U.S. bank account.
“At the same meeting, Mr. Sheck is alleged to have said that he had a friend who needed $800,000 moved to the Dominican Republic,” Smith said.
The case record said Sheck handed the agent $167,500 at a Vancouver meeting on Feb. 21, 2012.
Smith said the evidence gathered in Canada is not critical to the U.S. case against Sheck.
“Even if evidence of the Canadian transactions is excluded, it would not affect the requesting state’s case in relation to the other 23 transactions,” he said.
Red Scorpion gang leader Jonathan Bacon was shot to death on Aug. 14, 2011, when his vehicle was sprayed with gunfire outside Kelowna’s Delta Grand resort. Injured in the shooting were Hells Angel Larry Amero, Independent Soldier James Riach and companions Leah Hadden-Watts and Lyndsey Black. Charged in the case are rival gangsters Jujhar Khun-Khun, Jason McBride and Michael Jones. B.C Supreme Court Justice Allan Betton is presiding over the judge-alone trial.
On Monday, May 29, the trial begins, and reporter Kim Bolan will be tweeting live from court in Kelowna. Follow along for her updates and tweets here:
The Crown finally began its evidence today against Jason McBride, Jujhar Khun-Khun and Michael Jones, all three of whom are charged with first-degree murder for gunning down Jonathan Bacon here in Kelowna in August 2011.
Prosecutor Dave Ruse did a short opening statement in which he said former associates of the accused would be testifying against them. And he noted there was DNA evidence linking all three accused to clothing discarded after the Bacon slaying.
Chaos and blood: Witness recalls Bacon murder scene
KELOWNA — Jennifer Hunter remembers the pandemonium she saw outside Kelowna’s Delta Grand Hotel just minutes after Red Scorpion gangster Jonathan Bacon was gunned down on Aug. 14, 2011.
The RCMP constable testified in B.C. Supreme Court here Monday about being the first police officer to arrive at the chaotic scene.
“There were people waving their arms. There were people everywhere. People running. People screaming,” she told Justice Allan Betton.
Evidence at the trial of accused Bacon killers Jujhar Khun-Khun, Jason McBride and Michael Jones finally got underway Monday after weeks of delays.
The three gang associates are charged with first-degree murder in the Bacon slaying and the attempted murder of four others in the vehicle with the notorious Red Scorpion leader that day.
Crown prosecutor Dave Ruse said in his opening statement that former associates of the accused would testify against them in the coming months.
And he said DNA of all three accused was found on hoodies and a ball cap discarded after the murder.
Jonathan Bacon in June 2008RICK COLLINS / PNG
Hunter was the first witness to take the stand in a new high-security courtroom. The Kelowna Law Courts are in the same city block as the hotel where Bacon was killed about 2:40 p.m. on a summer Sunday.
She said she raced over to the white Porsche Cayenne that had crashed after being sprayed with gunfire.
The driver — who she learned was Hells Angel Larry Amero — was slipping in and out of consciousness.
She thought he was going to die.
“He was covered in blood and broken glass. He had a very large gaping wound on his arm. And he looked to be coming to and then passing out,” Hunter said.
She also saw victim Leah Hadden-Watts, who was paralyzed in the shooting, slumped forward in the back seat.
“There was a gaping wound on her back. And I thought there were parts of her spinal cord that I could see. She was motionless. I thought initially she was dead,” Hunter said.
Beside her was Lyndsey Black, struck in both legs by bullets, and crying — “hysterical crying, screaming” — Hunter said.
Bacon had already been pulled out of the Porsche and bystanders were attempting CPR.
“Amongst all of the screaming, there was somebody that had screamed that they were losing him and wanted to know where the ambulance was,” Hunter recalled.
“I remember vividly the colour of the male’s skin. It was the wrong shade. It was grey.”
Earlier in the day, Ruse laid out the Crown’s theory of the case.
He said that former gangsters-turned Crown witnesses would testify that all three accused were part of the team hunting Amero, Bacon and James Riach because the late Sukh Dhak believed the trio was behind the murder of his brother Gurmit in Burnaby in October 2010.
The Crown witnesses are also expected to testify that Khun-Khun, McBride, Jones and a fourth man, Manny Hairan, arrived in Kelowna early on the morning of Aug. 14, 2011 to kill Amero and his friends after they had been spotted partying in this lakeside resort town.
Sukh Dhak leaves BC Supreme Court, October 22, 2012
“They went and attended various bars, various clubhouses, including the Throttle Lockers and the Hells Angels, in an effort to locate Mr. Amero’s associates,” Ruse said.
The accused walked along the waterfront behind the Delta Grand Hotel where Amero and his group were staying and “saw a large orange boat named ‘Steroids and Silicone’ tied up. … Mr. McBride recognized that as Larry’s boat, and instructed them to keep their eyes open,” Ruse said.
Later that day, the Dhak associates went back to the hotel and waited.
Gurmit Dhak was shot to death in 2010 at Metrotown in Burnaby
Amero, Bacon, Riach, Hadden-Watts and Black had checked out and gotten into Amero’s Porsche. The Hells Angel was driving. Bacon was in the front. The women were in the back beside Riach, who was uninjured in the shooting.
“A Ford Explorer pulled up to the passenger side of the Porsche. Gunmen opened fire from within and outside the Explorer,” Ruse said.
“The gunman eventually got into their vehicle and sped off along Cawston (Avenue).”
Ruse said the three firearms believed to have been used in the murder — a Glock and two Norincos — were found months later dumped at a construction site north of Kelowna.
The clothing was found dumped inside a recycling bin at another location. Not only was there DNA matches to the accused, but a drop of Amero’s blood was found on one of the hoodies.
Police recovered 45 shell casings and two live rounds from the crime scene, Ruse said.
Before the evidence began Monday, the accused, each wearing a suit, stood and listened as the murder and attempted murder charges were read against them. One by one, they said “not guilty” to each count.
Betton was going to issue his ruling Monday on a defence application to stay the charges due to the length of time the case has taken to get to trial.
But said he needed more time to consider the arguments heard over the last two weeks and will release his ruling next week.
It was a dramatic day at the Kelowna trial of three men charged with killing Red Scorpion Jonathan Bacon on Aug. 14, 2011.
Visitors to the city who had booked at the luxurious Delta Grand hotel described the terrifying scene that unfolded before them when gunmen dressed all in black began firing.
Some were less than a metre away as dozens of shots rang out. It is amazing that there weren’t more casualties that day.
Of course none of the witnesses could identify who the masked shooters were.
Women testify about walking into gang shooting that left Bacon dead
The Porsche Cayenne in which Jonathan Bacon was shot dead in Kelowna on Aug. 14, 2011.DON SIPOS / PROVINCE
KELOWNA — Siu Ling Xu, her two little girls and some friends had spent the day picking fruit in the Okanagan before making a sudden decision to stay overnight at the Delta Grand Hotel on Aug. 14, 2011.
They checked in and headed out for a walk “because it was a beautiful day,” she testified in B.C. Supreme Court on Tuesday.
The group never even made it off hotel grounds.
Still in the Grand’s opulent courtyard, Xu and her daughters were stopped in their tracks by a gang shooting.
Xu described the “bang, bang, bang” sound she heard like someone stepping on bubble-wrap packaging.
“It was like someone was nonstop stepping on it. It was going off like crazy,” she told Justice Allan Betton at the murder trial of Jujhar Khun-Khun, Michael Jones and Jason McBride.
All three are charged with the first-degree murder of Red Scorpion gangster Jonathan Bacon and the attempted murder of Hells Angel Larry Amero, Independent Soldier James Riach, Leah Hadden-Watts and Lyndsey Black. The Bacon group was leaving the Delta Grand in a white Porsche Cayenne when gunmen starting shooting.
Xu said the Porsche cut right in front of her and then crashed. She pulled her children out of the way.
Then she saw two masked men, dressed all in black, carrying “machine guns” and shooting at the Porsche.
She said one of the shooters was two feet away from her, the other less than three feet and kneeling.
“It looked like they were shooting the guy in the front seat,” she said. “They were just standing in the middle between me and the vehicle and they were just shooting.”
She then saw a man with a white t-shirt — likely a wounded Bacon — lying under the white Porsche.
When she realized what was happening, “I started running,” she told the court.
She yelled at her older daughter as she carried the younger one: “I said, ‘Holy f-ck. Run. Don’t look back. Just run’,” Xu testified.
She reached the door of the hotel and a manager let her in. Her friend Candy Lei and Lei’s daughter had already taken refuge inside.
Candy Lei (left) and Siu Ling Xu leave the Kelowna courthouse on Tuesday after testifying.KIM BOLAN/ PNG
Lei also testified about what she saw and heard that fateful afternoon.
She said they had decided to stay at the Grand because the children wanted a hotel with a pool.
But because they hadn’t packed for overnight, they were going to buy what they needed, she testified.
She was behind Xu with her child and her aunt, who was also with the group, Lei testified.
“I heard something like a tire-popping sound and then I saw the car right beside my right-hand side,” she said.
She saw the shooters “fully covered with masks, and they have a long gun.”
“It was so scary and the first thing I thought was I want to run with my daughter,” she testified.
After the shooting, the women decided to leave Kelowna because their children no longer wanted to stay at the hotel.
Xu gave a statement to police the same day, she testified.
Catherine Wilson and her husband Alex also arrived in Kelowna that day and had stopped at the Delta Grand at about 2:30 p.m. to see if their room was ready. They were told to come back at 4 p.m., so headed to their car parked near the front door.
Wilson testified Tuesday that she also heard the shots. She thought they were fireworks, then she looked up.
“I saw some gunmen. I would say I saw at least two, probably three,” she testified. “They had hoods over their heads almost like a balaclava, so I could not see any faces or any skin at all.”
Her husband told her to run for the closest vehicle and get behind it. From there, she could no longer see the shooters, she testified.
“I was laying on the ground face down. I had another woman laying on top of me,” Wilson said. “She was yelling out and very upset because she didn’t know where all her family members were.”
Wilson said all those who took cover behind the parked car got up when the shooting stopped.
“I remember looking toward the vehicle that had been shot at,” she testified. “There were some car doors open and there was somebody on the ground and there was a man doing chest compressions on that person.”
Todd Lane was on his first trip to Kelowna and was looking forward to checking out some wine tours.
He and his partner Ryan Bester were unloading their car outside the hotel when they heard loud bangs.
Bester looked toward the street and saw a man “running and shooting.”
“I was fearful for my safety,” he testified.
He said he grabbed Lane and they crouched down behind their vehicle until they could make their way to a hotel side door.
The trial of Jujhar Khun-Khun, Jason McBride and Michael Jones heard more dramatic evidence Wednesday from people who just happened to be in the area when gunman opened fire on an SUV containing gangster Jonathan Bacon.
Clearly the ordeal was traumatic for so many people. They realized they could easily have been caught in the crossfire.
The Crown said on day 1 that the 3 guns found later were a 9 mm Glock, a Norinco 56-S and Norinco Mac 90. I am going to post photos at the end of this story illustrating what those guns look like as some readers are asking me. Hopefully we can get exhibit photos of the actual firearms later in the trial.
More dramatic testimony about fatal gangland shooting in Kelowna
KELOWNA — Judith Jones briefly broke down in B.C. Supreme Court on Wednesday as she described coming face-to-face with a masked gunman outside the Delta Grand Hotel just before he finished off his target.
The 69-year-old had been at the neighbouring casino on the afternoon of Aug. 14, 2011 with her daughter and were driving out past the hotel.
“Just as she started to pull forward, we heard a bunch of bang sounds and I think I said, ‘Who the heck is letting off firecrackers on a Sunday afternoon?’ And then we realized there was shooting going on,” Jones told Justice Allan Betton at the trial of three men accused of killing gangster Jonathan Bacon.
“The shooter stopped and looked at us, and as he looked, he aimed his gun toward us. There was another shooter on the left who also looked at us.”
After the chilling encounter, the gunmen continued firing at a white car that rolled into a tree, then crashed into a wall, she said.
One of the shooters walked up to the driver’s side and fired three more shots, Jones testified. The trial has already heard that Hells Angel Larry Amero was behind the wheel of the white Porsche Cayenne.
“(The other) shooter who was on the passenger side of the vehicle — there was a man on the ground between the wall and the car, and he shot him once,” she said.
The man on the ground was Bacon.
Jonathan Bacon in June 2008.RICK COLLINS / PNG
Jones said she watched the gunmen, dressed all in black, get into another SUV parked in the courtyard and take off from the scene.
Jones was one of four Kelowna residents who told their harrowing stories Wednesday at the trial of Jujhar Khun-Khun, Jason McBride and Michael Jones.
All three are charged with the first-degree murder of the Red Scorpion gang leader, as well as the attempted murder of the four others in the Porsche — Amero, Independent Soldier James Riach, Leah Hadden-Watts and Lyndsey Black.
Dianne Hofer had been checking out paddleboards in a nearby store with a friend and his son when they got into their car about a block from the scene.
Driving toward the hotel, Hofer heard what she thought was the “sound of firecrackers going off.”
Hofer said her friend “seemed to get distressed, and said we need to turn around.”
“I looked ahead and saw what looked like fire coming out of the end of a gun,” Hofer said.
She noticed at least one gunman, and possibly two, shooting at a white SUV in the hotel’s entrance.
Her friend said they needed to turn around and get out of there.
“It was probably my worst U-turn ever. … I was a bit frazzled at the time,” Hofer said.
She said she saw what looked like the suspects’ SUV racing past her car away from the shooting.
Her friend “commented that we should go back because there was shooting and people could be hurt.”
So they did.
Her friend began doing CPR on Bacon, while she stayed in her vehicle with her friend’s son.
Bob and Stephanie Bjarnason were also near the Grand Hotel on the afternoon of the shooting.
Bob testified that he and his wife wanted to go to the Lake City Casino on the hotel grounds.
“We had a $5 voucher for the slot machines at the casino and also just to walk around and see the sights,” he testified.
They made close to $20 and soon left the casino, walking down Water Street near the hotel. They heard the bangs.
“I looked up into the sky because it sounded like fireworks to me,” Bob testified.
He then looked ahead at ground level.
“At that point I saw two individuals chasing a white car and discharging firearms at it,” he said.
They were both dressed in black, he said, estimating they fired between 40 and 50 shots throughout the ordeal.
He took cover behind a nearby cedar tree.
Meanwhile, Stephanie had run back to the casino and warned the people inside not to leave before realizing her husband hadn’t followed her.
She reunited with him on the street minutes later, she testified.
There was more stunning testimony at the trial of Jujhar Khun-Khun, Jason McBride and Michel Jones Thursday. Hearing Vaughn Smeltzer, a Penticton man who ran towards the hotel to help the wounded, was really remarkable.
He tried his best to save Jonathan Bacon and probably prolonged the Red Scorpion gangster’s life for an extra half an hour. But despite his valiant efforts, Bacon died.
The trial is now adjourned until Monday. I will be covering it live for another week and hope to return later when some of the other key witnesses testify.
Penticton man describes trying to save Jonathan Bacon after shooting
Jonathan Bacon outside Abbotsford Provincial Court on June 8, 2008
KELOWNA — For what seemed like 20 minutes, Vaughn Smeltzer pumped the chest of a critically wounded Jonathan Bacon, desperately trying to keep him alive.
Smeltzer was nearby the Delta Grand Hotel on Aug. 14, 2011 with his young son and friend Dianne Hofer when they saw gunmen open fire.
At first, he thought it was a movie being filmed. Then he realized it was real.
He told his remarkable story in B.C. Supreme Court on Thursday at the trial of three men accused of killing Bacon that day.
Jujhar Khun-Khun, Jason McBride and Michael Jones are accused of the first-degree murder of the Red Scorpion leader, as well as the attempted murder of four others in the white Porsche.
The accused sat stone-faced as Smeltzer testified about yelling at Hofer, who was driving toward the hotel, to “get the hell out of here.”
She did a U-turn and they turned onto a side road and watched as the escaping gunmen’s Ford SUV raced past them.
Smeltzer tried unsuccessfully to get his cellphone camera activated so he could get a photo of the plate.
Instead of staying away from the carnage now a block away, Smeltzer told Hofer they should go back.
“I looked at Dianne and I said there are people back there that probably need help,” said Smeltzer, who has medical training.
Within minutes, Smeltzer was checking on the occupants of the Porsche.
He looked at Hells Angel Larry Amero sitting in the driver’s seat, who “appeared to be in shock, just staring forward.”
“I asked him if he was okay. He turned and looked at me. I noted blood on his shirt and in his lap,” Smeltzer told Justice Allan Betton.
He told Amero to put his hand on a wound on his stomach and Amero tried to use his injured left hand.
“There was a big hole through his hand and his wrist, so I said, ‘Use your other hand’,” Smeltzer testified.
He checked on two women in the back seat. Lyndsey Black was breathing and seemed alert, he said.
Leah Hadden-Watts “was laying, almost kneeling, on the back seat,” he said.
“Her head was against the hip of the first woman. … I touched her on the shoulder. She said, ‘I can’t feel anything.’ There was blood on her back. She was breathing.”
He turned his attention to the man lying on the ground on the passenger side of the Porsche. It was Bacon.
“He was basically in a fetal position. His legs were drawn up,” Smeltzer said. “There was no pulse.”
He rolled Bacon onto his back, he said, choking up as he recalled the scene.
“He was struggling for breath. He was attempting to breathe. His body was rising. His shoulders were hunching forward. He was unable to breath,” he said.
“I pulled his shirt up and I saw a couple of holes in him — one below his belly button on one side with what looked like a piece of metal sticking out right below his ribs, so I started to do CPR.”
He said he could hear a “sucking sound” every time he did a compression.
“I lifted the victim’s left arm. There was a large wound in his armpit. As I compressed, his chest air was escaping. So I stuck my knee in there.”
The CPR seemed to be working. Bacon’s pulse returned.
The spasms his body had been making as it struggled to get air subsided.
Smeltzer said paramedics arrived and he told them to tend to the other victims.
They eventually took over and he went to the fountain in the Delta’s courtyard to wash Bacon’s blood off his hands.
Then he went over to Hofer and his son to see how they were doing.
Outside court Thursday, Smeltzer told Postmedia that testifying brought the horror of the day back to him.
“I think those visuals — those memories of being there — I don’t think they will ever really go away,” he said.
He said his now-teenage son, who saw the gunmen before Smeltzer pushed him down in the back seat that day, is doing well.
But the father and son still talk about what happened, especially with the case being in the news again.
“We talked about it last night,” he said. “He’s glad he’s not here.”
Anti-gang police with the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit provide extra security at the Kelowna Law Courts.
Sharon Josephson was at the art gallery across from the Delta Grand with her daughters, then nine and six, and their friend, who was seven. It was family day and the galley was full of children, many of them babies and toddlers.
Her girls were doing a craft project. They heard a thump, thump, thump sound outside, followed by “a commotion.” A gallery window smashed, she said.
“People looked confused. The kids were looking at their moms and the moms were looking at each other,” Josephson testified.
“I was looking out at Water Street and I saw a man come out of the Delta Grand area with a gun.”
She said she didn’t know the shooting was targeted and thought it might be “crazy” gunman.
“I just grabbed my children and pushed them under the table and got down under the table on top of them,” she said.
The big development at the Kelowna trial for the accused killers of Jonathan Bacon was that the judge presiding over the case dismissed the defence application to throw out the charges.
Justice Allan Betton hasn’t provided his reasons yet, but will at a later date. That means the trial will continue as scheduled.
The Crown entered a new phase in its case. After a week of witnesses who were at or near the Delta Grand at the time of the shooting, witnesses Monday described seeing an SUV speeding away from the area that Sunday afternoon in 2011.
Witnesses testify about SUV speeding from downtown after Bacon shooting
KELOWNA — Jamie Farquhar was on his way home from a job on Aug. 14, 2011 when he noticed an SUV approaching him rapidly in his rear-view mirror.
He was so concerned about how the occupants of the Ford were driving that he tried to memorize the time and the plate number so he could call police later, he testified in B.C. Supreme Court Monday.
Paramedics tend to victim Larry Amero after a shooting incident outside the Delta Grand Hotel in Kelowna, BC August 14, 2011. Jonathan Bacon was shot dead. Five others were taken to Kelowna Hospital.DON SIPOS / PNG
Farquhar was one of a series of witnesses who testified about the vehicle that the Crown alleges was used by the killers of Jonathan Bacon to flee the Delta Grand hotel minutes after the fatal shooting.
Jujhar Khun-Khun, Jason McBride and Michael Jones are charged with killing Bacon, as well as attempting to kill four others with the Red Scorpion leader that day.
Farquhar described the vehicle he saw speeding near downtown Kelowna as a Ford SUV that had a paint colour that changed depending on the way the light was hitting it.
Farquhar said “there was certainly something not normal with that vehicle. It caught my eye.”
Paramedics load a victim into an ambulance in Kelowna, B.C. August 14, 2011 after a shooting outside the Delta Grand Hotel. Jonathan Bacon was shot dead. Five others were taken to Kelowna Hospital.DON SIPOS / PNG
“Just noticing the way the vehicle was being driven, I could tell it was either by someone who was in a huge hurry or something else was going on,” Farquhar said.
He said the SUV paused briefly at a red light, “then blew through the red light with very fast acceleration.”
“I remember thinking whatever that vehicle is doing or whatever the people in that vehicle are doing, it seemed at least a little bit criminal in terms of the way they were driving, so I did take note of the licence plate,” he told Justice Allan Betton.
He said he saw the SUV turn onto Highland Drive, which he thought was unusual because it was a small residential neighbourhood with dead-end streets.
Crown prosecutor Dave Ruse said in his opening statement last week that the three firearms prosecutors believe were used in the shooting were later found in some bushes on Highland Drive.
Farquhar said he couldn’t get a good look at the occupants of the Ford SUV because of the tinted windows.
“They were wearing really dark clothes and hoodies,” he testified.
Terri Rae also saw a suspicious SUV racing down Clement Avenue that Sunday afternoon.
The dark-coloured SUV passed her and then did the same to the car in front of her, Rae testified.
“There were two kids that were just running across the street and I hit the horn – it didn’t seem as if he had noticed the children so I hit the horn to make sure that he noticed,” she said. “He did slow down, missed the kids and then took off and kept driving in the on-coming lane.”
She said she also saw the SUV stop briefly at a red light before racing through it.
“It swerved in and out of traffic dangerously,” Rae said.
Earlier Monday, Betton dismissed an application from the three accused killers to throw out the charges they face over the length of time the case has taken to get to trial.
While Betton dismissed the application, he provided no reasons for doing so.
He said he was preparing detailed reasons that would be released later.
“It is my conclusion after much reflection and consideration and the very helpful, able and thorough arguments of counsel that the application for a judicial stay on the basis of unreasonable delay must be in the circumstances of this case dismissed,” Betton said.
He said his written reasons would be lengthy and comprehensive.
“I fully appreciate the scrutiny that is likely to be given to them. Accordingly, I feel I need to take the additional time to ensure they are as thorough and complete as I can possibly make them.”
Lawyers for the three gang associates argued that their clients have been in custody since their arrest in February 2013 — more than four years before their trial began here last month.
Last summer, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that criminal trials at the Supreme Court level should be completed within 30 months unless there are “exceptional circumstances.”
