2 dead, 2 hurt in shooting rampage
RCMP say a suspect was shot and later died after confrontation with police
Two people were killed and two others seriously injured in a shooting rampage that spanned nearly six hours across several sites in Langley City and the Township of Langley in the early hours of Monday.
RCMP said officers later shot and killed a suspect.
Homicide investigators are trying to determine the motive behind the shootings, which targeted at least one person living in a supportive housing complex.
“These people were targeted but the nature of how they are related to the shooter, we’re still trying to determine that,” said Sgt. David Lee of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team during a news conference at the Langley RCMP detachment.
Police say the shootings started at around midnight in the area of the Cascades Casino near 203A Street and Fraser Highway, where a woman was shot and taken to Langley hospital in critical condition.
The shooter then proceeded to Creek Stone Place, a supportive housing site in the 6400block of 200 Street, where shots were fired at around 3 a.m. Police later found a deceased man at the scene, about two kilometres north of the casino.
Two hours later, at 5 a.m., more gunfire erupted at the Langley City bus loop near Logan Avenue and Glover Road – a few hundred metres away from the casino site. Another man was found dead by officers here.
The violence ended 45 minutes later at 200 Street and the Langley Bypass where police found and confronted the suspect. He was shot and pronounced dead at the scene.
A fourth victim, a man shot in the leg, was also located at this site.
“We are actively investigating a series of shootings that has left two dead, one in critical condition and another with serious injuries,” said RCMP Chief Supt. Ghalib Bhayani in a statement.
“We don’t know the motive behind this deadly incident nor if there was any relationship between the deceased suspect and the victims.”
Bhayani told the media that evidence points to a lone gunman responsible for the shootings.
The victims and the suspect have all been identified by the police, but their identities are not being released at this time.
The suspect was known to police, said Lee. One of the victims was identified by a friend as Paul Wallace, known as “small Paul.”
Longtime friend Cheryl Smith, 55, told Postmedia Paul was in his 50s and lived at Creek Stone Place, a former Quality Inn hotel that the province converted to a supportivehousing complex.
By noon, Smith had run up to police tape at the Langley City bus loop with tears in her eyes, pleading for Mounties to let her know if the victim who lay underneath a forensic tent was another of her friends.
“I feel heartbroken,” Smith told Postmedia from the window of her car. “Paul was an awesome guy. He helped a lot of people in the community, including me, when I was down and out.”
Langley Mayor Val van den Broek said the community woke up to a tragedy this morning.
“This was an isolated incident as far as we know,” she said. “I just want to say to the Langley community: We’re strong and we’ll get through this.”
While she spoke to the media Monday afternoon, the founder of a non-profit that has served Langley’s homeless community food, clothing and other necessities converged on the steps of the RCMP detachment.
“I don’t know why people are shocked that these things happened to the less fortunate,” Kim Snow of Kimz Angels said.
Snow said the B.C. Ministry of Housing, which put up unhoused residents in Langley in hotels during the COVID-19 pandemic as an emergency self-isolation measure, told her it would use the opportunity to find a permanent housing solution for them.
This March, Snow said many of those living in the hotels were let back out on the streets.
“It’s an unsafe place for them, sleeping outside in the dark. They are vulnerable and unprotected from all sorts of dangers and our government has let them down because they need housing to protect them.”
At the news conference, however, Lee said police are not able to confirm if all the victims involved are homeless.
“We cannot say right now that they are all homeless,” he said. “We are still determining how they are related to the suspect.”
The public was alerted to the unfolding incident early Monday by an emergency alert sent out to cellphones across the Lower Mainland.
The alert, sent at around 6:25 a.m., was issued out of an abundance of caution, said police. It warned of several shootings, including one incident that involved “transient victims” in the Township of Langley.
At the news conference, however, Lee said police are not able to confirm if all the victims involved are homeless.
“We cannot say right now that they are all homeless,” he said. “We are still determining how they are related to the suspect.”
This is only the second time an emergency alert was issued by RCMP in B.C. The first time was in November 2021 during an active shooter incident in Vanderhoof.
The alert was issued to notify as many people as possible in that geographical area at that time, said IHIT.
Police also confirmed investigators were at five different sites in Langley.
At one site, a white car riddled with bullet holes could be seen in a strip mall parking lot near 200 Street and the Langley Bypass. A truck with a smashed-out window was also in the lot, along with an evidence tent.
Nearby, a pair of shoes and a backpack could be seen strewn across the sidewalk.
A second tent could be seen at the Langley bus loop located at Logan Avenue and Glover Road near the Mission Thrift Store, where one of the victims was shot dead.
One man, who said he was homeless, said he rushed to the Langley bus loop after friends told him another homeless man had been shot in the area. “I saw ambulance (paramedics) try to revive the guy,” he said.
The man asked his name be withheld fearing retaliation from the shooter. “It’s so sad. I hope they are able to identify who this man is and tell his family.”
Police asked the public to avoid 200 Street and Langley Bypass, the Langley bus loop, and the parking lot of Cascades Casino at Fraser Highway and 204 Street.
That area by the casino, not far from the Langley bus loop, was also cordoned off. Behind the police tape, a shopping cart containing what appears to be personal belongings stood underneath a tree.
By 8 a.m. a small group of people had gathered on concrete benches outside the casino, a few hundred metres away from the cordoned-off site.
One of them, a middle-aged woman who identified herself to Postmedia as homeless, said that from that vantage point, she heard the screams of a woman earlier that morning, followed by the pop of gunshots.
“She looked like she had been sleeping,” the woman said.
At Willowbrook Shopping Centre in the Langley Township, a small section including the front entrance of T & T Supermarket and a TransLink bus stop was also behind police lines.
The emergency alert included a description of a man — lightskinned, dark hair, wearing brown coveralls, and a blue and green camo T-shirt. The man is also associated with a white car. “Police have interaction with (one) suspect,” said the alert. “Unknown if others involved at this time.”
About an hour after the alert was issued, a second notification was sent out, saying the suspect “is no longer a threat.”