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RCMP say a suspect was shot and later died after a standoff with police.
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July 25, 2022 • 19 minutes ago • 6 minutes read • 71 comments RCMP are investigating shootings in Langley that left three men dead and two others seriously injured. One of the victims died in a parking lot next to the Mission Thrift Shop near the Langley City Bus Loop at Logan Avenue and Glover Road. Photo by Nick Procaylo/PNG
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Homicide investigators are trying to determine why a gunman opened fire in Langley Monday morning, shooting two people to death and wounding two others.
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The rampage ended when police found a suspect at the scene of the fourth shooting and shot him dead.
“We do not know the motive for this fatal incident or if there was any relationship between the deceased suspect and the victims,” said RCMP Chief Supt. said Ghalib Bhayani.
Police identified the dead suspect as Jordan Daniel Goggin, 28, of Surrey. In a statement, the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team said Goggin was known to police but had “no criminal contacts”.
The shootings lasted nearly six hours at various locations in the city of Langley and Langley Township early Monday, targeting at least one person who lived in a supportive housing complex.
“These individuals were targeted, but the nature of how they relate to the shooter, we’re still trying to determine,” said IHIT Sgt. David Lee said at a news conference at the Langley RCMP detachment.
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Mike Farnworth, B.C.’s public safety minister, said Monday afternoon he was upset by the “senseless act of violence.”
“I understand that British Columbians are concerned and afraid when events like this happen,” he said. “I want British Columbians to feel safe, as more information becomes available we will release it to the public.”
Police said the shootings began around midnight in the area of Cascades Casino near 203A Street and Fraser Highway, where a woman was shot and taken to Langley Hospital in critical condition.
The shooter then made his way to Creek Stone Place, a supportive housing site in the 6400 block of 200 Street, where shots were fired around 3 a.m. One person died there, about two kilometers north of the casino.
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Two hours later, at 5 a.m., more shots were fired at the Langley City bus loop near Logan Avenue and Glover Road, a few hundred yards from the casino. Another man was killed there.
The violence ended 45 minutes later at 200 Street and the Langley Bypass, where police confronted a suspect after a man was shot in the leg in the latter scene. Police did not say whether the suspect fired at police before officers opened fire, but a police vehicle was seen with numerous bullet holes.
Bhayani said evidence points to a single gunman responsible for the shootings. The victims have been identified by police, but their identities have not been released.
One of the victims was identified by a friend as Paul Wallace, known as “little Paul”.
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Bullet holes in a vehicle as RCMP are at the scene of a fatal shooting in the parking lot of the Rio Can Langley Center on 200th St. in Langley, BC on July 25, 2022. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /PNG
Longtime friend Cheryl Smith, 55, told Postmedia that Wallace was in his 50s and lived at Creek Stone Place, a former Quality Inn hotel that the province converted into a supportive housing complex.
Around noon, Smith ran to the police tape at the Langley City bus loop with tears in her eyes, pleading with Mounties to tell her if the victim who was lying under a Forensic Identification Unit tent she was another of her friends.
“I feel broken,” Smith told Postmedia from his car window. “Paul was a great guy. He helped a lot of people in the community, including me, when I was down.”
“This was an isolated incident as far as we know,” said Town of Langley Mayor Val van den Broek. “I just want to say to the Langley community, we are strong and we will get through this.”
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“I don’t know why people are shocked that these things happen to the less fortunate,” said Kim Snow, founder of Kimz Angel, a nonprofit that has served Langley’s homeless community.
Snow said BC Housing, which housed unsheltered Langley residents in hotels during the COVID-19 pandemic as an emergency self-isolation measure, told her it would take the opportunity to find them permanent housing.
Instead, Snow said, many of those living in hotels were put back on the streets in March.
“It’s an unsafe place for them, sleeping outside in the dark. They are vulnerable and unprotected from all kinds of dangers and our government has let them down because they need housing to protect them.”
RCMP at the scene of a fatal shooting in the parking lot of the Rio Can Langley Center on 200th St. in Langley, BC on July 25, 2022. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /PNG
Late Monday, BC Housing confirmed in a statement that one of the shooting incidents happened outside of Creek Stone Place.
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“Victim services have contacted staff and other residents at Creek Stone to provide support as needed,” the statement said. “Additionally, Gateway of Hope Shelter in Langley, located at 5787 Langley Bypass, is opening 15 additional mats this week to accommodate any homeless individuals who do not feel safe sleeping outdoors.”
Since 2017, BC Housing added, there have been “more than 530 homes purchased, completed or underway, including 95 supportive homes in the City of Langley.”
At the news conference, Lee said police could not confirm whether all of the victims involved were homeless.
“We can’t say right now that they’re all homeless,” he said. “We are still determining how they are related to the suspect.”
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The public was alerted to the incident that unfolded early Monday through an emergency alert sent to cell phones throughout the Lower Mainland.
The alert, sent out around 6:25 a.m., was issued out of an abundance of caution, police said. He warned of several shootings, including one incident involving “transient victims” in Langley Township.
This is only the second time the RCMP has issued an emergency alert in BC. The first time was in November 2021 during an active shooter incident in Vanderhoof.
The alert was issued to notify as many people as possible in that geographic area at the time, IHIT said.
Police also confirmed that investigators were at five different locations in Langley.
At one location, a white car riddled with bullet holes could be seen in a shopping center parking lot near 200th Street and the Langley Bypass. A truck with a broken window was also on the lot, along with a test tent.
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Nearby, a pair of shoes and a backpack could be seen scattered on the pavement.
Another tent could be seen on the Langley Bus Loop located at Logan Avenue and Glover Road near the Mission Thrift Store where one of the victims was shot and killed.
One man, who said he was homeless, said he rushed to the Langley bus loop after his friends told him another homeless man had been shot in the area.
“I saw an ambulance (paramedics) trying to revive the man,” he said.
The man asked that his name not be used for fear of retaliation from the shooter. “It’s very sad. I hope they can identify who this man is and tell his family.”
RCMP in Langley after reports of multiple shootings. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /PNG
Police asked the public to avoid 200 Street and the Langley Bypass, the Langley Bus Loop and the Casino Cascades parking lot at Fraser Highway and 204 Street.
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That area of the casino, not far from the Langley bus loop, was also cordoned off. Behind the police tape, a shopping cart containing what appeared to be personal items was under a tree.
By 8 a.m., a small group of people had gathered on the concrete benches outside the casino, a few hundred yards from the cordoned-off site.
One of them, a middle-aged woman who identified herself to Postmedia as homeless, said that from that vantage point she heard a woman’s screams in the early hours of the morning, followed by the burst of gunfire
“It looked like he had been sleeping,” the woman said.
At Willowbrook Shopping Center in Langley Township, a small section including the main entrance to T&T Supermarket and a TransLink bus stop was also behind police lines.
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The emergency alert included a description of a man who was associated with a white car.
About an hour after the alert was issued, a second notification was sent stating that the suspect is “no longer a threat.”
Jess Lee was…