Three men have been arrested for the murder of Red Scorpion gang leader Jonathan Bacon in the summer of 2011 at the entrance of the Delta Grand Hotel.
Charged with first degree murder are Jujhar Singh Khun-Khun, 25, of Surrey, Michael Kerry Hunter Jones, 25, of Gibsons, and Jason Thompson McBride, 37, of North Vancouver.
They are also allegedly responsible for the attempted murders of Hells Angel Larry Amero, Independent Soldier James Riach, and two young women, Leah Hadden-Watts and Lyndsey Black, who were all in a white Porsche Cayenne with Bacon on the afternoon of Sunday, Aug. 14, 2011 when it was shot at by the masked gunmen.
“This violent incident rocked the city of Kelowna in an act so brazen that it might have been mistaken for a bad action movie,” said RCMP Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit Chief Superintendent Dan Malo in a press conference held in the Lower Mainland at 1 p.m. today.
The shooting sent shock-waves through Kelowna’s downtown core as stray bullets hit the Kelowna Art Gallery, The Color Room hair salon and the hotel itself; and it was immediately made a top priority for the RCMP.
Art Gallery staff were roundly praised for their presence of mind under fire on the day of the event, moving a room full of children and parents gathered for its Family Sunday programming to a safe location further back in the building as a bullet pierced the gallery’s front window where the families were gathered doing activities.
A year later, on the anniversary of the shooting, the RCMP could not calm the fears of those caught up in the shooting as investigators told media they were working on the case, but had nothing to report.
The arrests were made 18 months after the event and require 100 officers from across the country to complete. Malo said that up to 80 investigators were working the case at any given time, at times around the clock, to bring the trio to justice.
All three were connected to notorious gangster Gurmit Dhak, who was killed in the Lower Mainland in 2010, and the shooting was said to be in retaliation for his death. More to come.
