Jonathan Bacon, one of the notorious Bacon brothers associated with the Red Scorpion gang, has been shot, according to News1130 sources.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - The eldest of Abbotsford's Bacon brothers has been shot and killed in Kelowna. And one criminologist says we can expect some retaliation after Jonathan Bacon was gunned down yesterday afternoon.
But SFU's Rob Gordon doesn't think the level of retaliation will reach the same violent height of the gang war back in 2009.
"I think it's more likely that it's retaliation, or it's a settling of scores. These folks have pretty long memories. I think what we're likely to see as a result of this is probably one or more retaliatory actions, and hopefully it doesn't, but there's no doubt going to be a reaction."
Gordon adds Bacon's killing was a wholesale attempt by one group to seize control of a certain section of the drug trade.
Meantime, the Gang Task Force is trying to find out what police have done following other high-profile gang shootings.
The force tends to step up its intelligence gathering and puts field investigators in the community to develop leads toward identifying those responsible.
Sergeant Shinder Kirk says they also try to stop further bloodshed.
"What the public doesn't see is that officers are out there on our streets actually doing what we call duty-to-warns: informing people that have been targeted that their lives are at risk, thus hoping to mitigate any collateral victims in any of these cases."
He says public warnings are only put out when there is a significant risk to the community. "We certainly monitor individuals that we are certainly keen on and continue to bring pressure to address any issues and take any enforcement actions that's necessary."
Kirk explains most of the work happens outside the public eye, specifically with "duty-to-warns" informing people who have been targeted that their lives may be at risk, in the hopes of avoiding collateral victims.
About 900 people were staying at the Delta Grand Okanagan when the shots rang out. General manager Daniel Bibby says his team did very well keeping guests calm amid the chaos.
"We also brought in stress counselors through our employee assistance program and we actually also opened that up to our guests now as well," says Bibby. "So we'll have them on site here for the next couple of days just to make sure that if anyone needs to talk about how they're feeling that we're taking good care of them."
Bibby adds they spend a lot of time training for emergencies.
