One person is dead following a targeted shooting in the Yale Road and Menzies area of Chilliwack Thursday afternoon.
The RCMP’s Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT) said the victim was 27-year-old Kyle Cromarty of Chilliwack.
Chilliwack RCMP received reports of shots fired in the location at 2:42 p.m. on Oct. 4.
Mounties said when they arrived on scene, one person was suffering a life-threatening injury, he was transported by B.C. Ambulance to hospital where he succumbed to his injury.
One witness told The Progress she saw a male with blood on him transported by ambulance away from the scene. That witness said police were interviewing a boy who had claimed to hear one shot and saw a male running away.
Another witness he was walking his son across the street when he heard two shots.
Police were focused near the parking lot of the condominium complex on the north side of Yale Road just east of the IGA parking lot. They were still there Friday.
Chilliwack secondary school and other schools in the area were in a hold-and-secure for a number of hours after school was over.
In a statement issued later Thursday, RCMP said it was believed the killing was not a random act. IHIT confirmed that on Friday.
“It is still early in the investigation but we believe Mr. Cromarty was targeted for murder,” said IHIT spokesperson Cpl. Frank Jang.
VICTIM IDENTIFIED IN CHILLIWACK: 27-yr-old Kyle Cromarty was shot and killed yesterday at 2:42pm in the 46000-block of Yale Road. Believed targeted. #IHIT urges anyone with information to come forward. Call #IHIT info line or anonymously at @SolveCrime pic.twitter.com/Co9zIQRDCo
— IHIT (@HomicideTeam) October 5, 2018
Jang said Cromarty did not have any known links to gangs nor was he know to police, but the killing was clearly targeted.
“Given the circumstance of how this went down… it’s very cler that somebody intended to kill Kyle Cromarty,” Jang said at a press conference on Friday. “Somebody marked him for murder and we need to understand why.”
Jang put out a plea to friends of Cromarty to come forward with information that could help solve the case.
“Don’t be silent on this. He’s now a victim of homicide. Somebody murdered him in cold blood. I hope that’s disturbing to you. It is to us.”
The shooting comes less than 24 hours after a 19-year-old man was killed in Mission in what police have called a targeted shooting.
READ MORE: Cops had told B.C. murder victim: ‘Someone’s going to get shot because of you’
The homicide on Oct. 4 marks the third this year in Chilliwack.
The first was 28-year-old Cody Isaacson killed in a hail of bullets in a home on Broadway Avenue on Jan. 31.
And the second was Zach Cross, 25, killed in a house on Wellington Avenue on June 7.
•READ MORE: Father of Chilliwack homicide victim said he knew it was coming
• READ MORE: IHIT confirms identity of Chilliwack’s second homicide victim of the year
Both Isaacson and Cross were involved in the drug trade, both killings were targeted, and no one has been arrested in either case.
Anyone with information about the Oct. 4 shooting in Chilliwack is asked to call the IHIT information line at 1-877-551-IHIT (4448) or email ihitinfo@rcmp-grc.gc.ca.
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