Shooting victim a member of gang targeted after Jonathan Bacon's death death

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Shooting victim a member of gang targeted after Jonathan Bacon's death



VANCOUVER — A young man seriously wounded in a targeted shooting Friday is in a gang police have said is battling with some Hells Angels after last month’s fatal gangland shooting in Kelowna, B.C.

Jujhar Singh Khun-Khun, 24, is a member of the “Dhak” crew, which is aligned with the Duhre brothers and United Nations gang against the bikers and their associated gangs.

Khun-Khun’s shooting in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey comes just two weeks after police issued a public warning.

Supt. Tom McCluskie, head of the Gang Task Force, said tensions were escalating between a group of Hells Angels and the Dhak-Duhre-United Nations group over the Aug. 14 Kelowna shooting that killed Red Scorpion Jonathan Bacon and wounded Hells Angel Larry Amero and Independent Soldier James Riach.

He also predicted that retaliation for the brazen daytime shooting in Kelowna was inevitable.

But McCluskie said Sunday that it is too early to say what the motive is behind the most recent attack in which Khun-Khun was sprayed with gunfire.

And he said that Khun-Khun’s criminal lifestyle inevitably led to him becoming a target.

“It’s no surprise to the policing community that Mr. Khun-Khun was shot. He chooses to live a lifestyle immersed in continual violence. Being seriously wounded or murdered is often the outcome of those who chose this direction in their life,” McCluskie said.

Khun-Khun, who remains in critical condition in hospital, was arrested last month in Nanaimo, B.C., with two associates and charged with selling crack cocaine.

He was released Aug. 22 on an undertaking to appear in the Vancouver Island court on Tuesday on charges of trafficking after RCMP pulled over a 2008 Acura and found 27.5 grams of crack cocaine, 7.5 grams of marijuana, 108 ecstasy pills, $1,700 in Canadian cash, scales, and a radio-jamming system.

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Khun-Khun was shot about 9:30 p.m. Friday as he sat in the driver’s seat of a Nissan Murano. His gang associate, Sukhveer Dhak, 27, was nearby at the time.

Police locked down the area for several hours, but no suspect has been captured or identified.

Dhak has since been arrested accused of breaching his bail conditions and for driving while prohibited. He is awaiting trial in B.C. Supreme Court in November on trafficking charges stemming from a massive 2008 undercover operation dubbed Project Gateway.

Dhak is the brother of Gurmit Singh Dhak, a longtime gangster who was gunned down last October at Burnaby’s Metrotown Mall. No one has been charged in that slaying, which led to a round of retaliatory violence including the wounding of 10 outside a Vancouver restaurant last December.

After Friday’s shooting, RCMP Cpl. Holly Marks said the fact a gunman opened fire in a residential neighbourhood “shows that gangs have a callous disregard for the safety of others.”

“Significant resources are employed to investigate this shooting,” she said.

Khun-Khun was charged in Edmonton two years ago in connection to an armed robbery of a jewelry store there.

And he was convicted of kidnapping in Surrey provincial court in November 2007 after holding a stranger at gunpoint for several hours so he and an accomplice could steal his commercial truck.

The judge described the kidnapping as a “random, brazen act of violence on an unsuspecting and innocent member of the public.”

Khun-Khun was also in the news that year when his 19-year-old fiancee died after falling from the truck he was driving in Surrey. No charges were laid.

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Jonathan Bacon and five other victims were rushed to Kelowna General Hospital around 3 p.m. Sunday after at least one gunman opened fire on a vehicle in the Lake City Casino parking lot in Kelowna.



Kelowna RCMP Superintendent Bill McKinnon speaks to reporters at a press conference about a mass shooting in Kelowna on August 14, 2011 that took the live of BC gangster Jonathan Bacon.