One person is dead after a daytime shooting in a busy Surrey parking lot on Monday afternoon.
According to Surrey Police Services, officers were called to the scene of a fatal shooting on the Surrey-Delta border just after 5:30 p.m., where they found a driver inside his vehicle suffering from life-threatening injuries.
Police sources confirmed to one media outlet that the victim is Jaskaran Minhas—”a well-known athlete” who played soccer at New Westminster’s Douglas College.
It’s the first homicide in Surrey this year. Details surrounding the incident were quickly and widely shared across various social media platforms.
Photos taken at the scene showed a grey Volkswagen Tiguan with several bullet holes in the windshield.
The SUV appeared to have crashed into a small tree in the parking lot, which consists of several businesses—including a Best Buy, an RBC bank and The Keg steakhouse.
A video posted to X, meanwhile, appeared to show a red Dodge Charger fleeing from the scene.
About 10 minutes later, Delta police responded to a vehicle on fire in the area of 64 Avenue and Westview Drive. Upon arrival, they found a charred but mostly intact Charger similar to the one seen in the video.
Torched cars have become a familiar sight in Surrey—seen in the high-profile Surrey slayings of Ripudaman Singh Malik and Hardeep Singh Nijjar, they are considered a hallmark of gang violence.
A commentator who was quick to the scene speculated as many as 20 shots were fired, while a witness on the scene said it was difficult to discern how many shots were fired.
“It was such a blur. Instead of just one shot, it was just like a wall of sound,” the witness explained to CityNews.