Police probing events around shooting death of gangster
Gangster survived other shootings
More than a decade before Harb Dhaliwal was gunned down in Coal Harbour on Saturday night, a drive-by shooter targeted the family home in Abbotsford, narrowly missing his sister, who was in her car in the driveway.
Abbotsford police said after the Jan. 5, 2011 shooting that they believed the intended target was likely one of the woman's brothers: Barinder, then 27, or Harb, then 21.
The media officer at the time, Const. Ian MacDonald, noted that the elder brother had already had 136 contacts with police, while Harb had then had 42.
Violence has followed Barinder, Harb and younger brother Meninder ever since.
Barinder has a conviction for possessing firearms. Meninder's fingerprint was recently found on a prohibited semi-automatic handgun. Before Saturday, all three brothers had survived at least four targeted shootings between them.
Before Saturday, the three brothers had survived at least four targeted shootings between them.
Now Vancouver police homicide investigators are trying to piece together what happened before and after the Brothers Keepers gangster was shot to death in front of his shocked older brother.
“Our homicide unit is actively investigating, working diligently to understand all of the circumstances that happened and to hold those people who did this accountable,” Sgt. Steve Addison said Monday. “It has all the hallmarks of an intentional killing.”
Addison said investigators have still not made a definitive link between Dhaliwal's murder and a near-fatal stabbing in the 1400-block of West Hastings about 10 minutes later.
But sources told Postmedia that someone in the Dhaliwal group chased the hitman from the crime scene up Nicola Street to the area where the stabbing happened, about a block away.
Nearby residents told Postmedia that police found the stabbing victim in some bushes near Broughton and Pender streets a few minutes later. He is now in critical condition in hospital. No one has been arrested in either crime.
Addison said police resources were stretched thin Saturday with the murder, the stabbing and crowds of people partying along the waterfront and in downtown parks, some in violation of public health orders.
“Those are two very large crime scenes that required police officers to contain them, to monitor them, to make sure that the scenes were protected so that we could protect any evidence,” he said.
“Around the same time, VPD officers attempted to stop a vehicle in the west end that was being driven by some suspected gang members. The vehicle failed to stop and fled from the traffic stop.”
The car crashed in the 500-block of Jervis Street at about 10:50 p.m. and three occupants “took off running,” Addison said.
They took off to the seawall as officers chased after them.
The suspects got away, but Addison said he anticipates they will be caught and that “charges will be forthcoming.”
While police haven't released information about a possible motive in the Dhaliwal murder, the Brothers Keepers have been in a violent conflict for almost four years with rivals from the Kang/Red Scorpion gang and with the United Nations.
Harb Dhaliwal was shot in Abbotsford in 2017, and gangster Randy Kang was gunned down the next day in Surrey.
Rapper Tyrel Nguyen Quesnelle, who was later charged with Kang 's murder, walked into an August 2019 Hells Angels funeral alongside Harb and Barinder Dhaliwal.
Sgt. Brenda Winpenny, of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, said the Brothers Keepers remain a priority target of the anti-gang agency.
“The Brothers Keepers have been targets of police suppression, disruption and enforcement strategies over the past few years, with their operations impacted on several fronts,” Winpenny said.
The Dhaliwals weren't always with the Hells Angels-aligned BK. A decade ago, they were connected to another trio of notorious Abbotsford brothers: Jonathan, Jarrod and Jamie Bacon.
After Jonathan Bacon was shot to death in Kelowna, Postmedia photographed Barinder arriving at a Langley funeral home for Bacon's service in August 2011.
When Jarrod Bacon went to trial for conspiracy to traffic cocaine, the eldest Dhaliwal was identified in court by a police agent as an alleged financial backer of the coke deal, though he was never charged.