 Hello. Over the past couple of weeks, several violent but unrelated incidents have generated a lot of discussion about public safety in Vancouver, due in part to their very public and high-profile nature. While Vancouver is by and large a safe city, and incidents like the ones we've seen in the past few weeks are quite rare, we understand that crimes like these diminish our collective sense of safety and well-being. My name is Inspector Mike Rowe, I'm the officer in charge of the Vancouver Police Department's Major Crime Section, which investigates homicides, gun violence, and serious assaults. I'm here today to announce significant developments in two very high-profile incidents that have generated a lot of discussion in our communities and in the media. I'll also take time to answer questions and provide updates about other major cases that are still under investigation. On 6 a.m. on the morning of April 3rd, officers responded to reports of screams heard and found a woman laying on Rosemount Drive near the Fraserview Golf Course in South Vancouver. Members of our patrol division were the first officers on scene. When they arrived, they discovered a woman who had been fatally injured. Sadly, she died at the scene. I'm able to tell you that the victim has been identified as Gertrude Chong, a 49-year-old Vancouver resident. I can also tell you that our investigation, which began the morning of April 3rd immediately after the first officers arrived on scene, has resulted in the identification and the arrest of a person we believe is responsible for Gertrude's death. Yesterday, the BC prosecution service approved the charge of second-degree murder against Eric Lau, a 29-year-old man from Burnaby. This is a major development and a very public murder that understandably caused fear, anxiety, and speculation throughout our community. I hope this news brings some degree of comfort to those who have felt uneasy knowing that this crime until now remained unsolved. I want to thank the very experienced and dedicated investigators, especially those from the Vancouver Police homicide and forensic identification units, for their detailed and diligent work over the past few weeks. And while I'm pleased that our investigation has so quickly resulted in a criminal charge, this investigation is ongoing and there is still more work to do. Due to the status of the investigation, I'm unable to share specific information about the relationship between the suspect and the victim, but I can say with certainty that this was not a random attack and that the victim and the suspect did know each other. I can also tell you that we do not believe this incident is connected to any of the other violent incidents that have occurred in the city of Vancouver. The next major update I want to provide relates to the investigation into a shooting in downtown Vancouver on April 3rd. Thirteen days ago, officers responded to reports of gunshots near Homer Street and West Pender Street. The suspect fled as officers were responding and when police arrived, they found a 46-year-old man suffering from a gunshot wound to the face. The victim was rushed to hospital for treatment and while he is expected to survive, his physical and emotional injuries will be long-lasting. Because the suspect fled, his identity was not immediately known. Neither was the motive for the shooting or the circumstances that led up to it. But for nearly two weeks, our officers have worked nonstop to gather and analyze forensic and video evidence from the crime scene to interview witnesses and understand the events that led up to the shooting. And the result is we have identified the person that we believe is responsible. Last Friday, on April 12th, VPD major crime investigators arrested a 32-year-old Vancouver man and yesterday, the BC prosecution service charged Justin Delaney Littlewolf with one count of just charging a firearm, contrary to section 244-1 of the criminal code, and one count of aggravated assault, contrary to section 268-2 of the criminal code. While this matters now before the courts, I am limited with the amount of information that I can share. However, I am able to confirm that the victim in this case was not the intended target of the shooting and the victim in this case was in fact an innocent bystander. On behalf of the Vancouver Police Department, my condolences go out to the shooting victim and his loved ones. I know this arrest and these charges won't change what has happened to him, but I hope this begins to provide some answers as to what was, without a doubt, an extremely traumatic and life-changing experience. Major crime cases are complex and investigations like the Rosemont Drive murder and the Helmer Street shooting can take months or even years to solve. Our ability to solve these two cases in less than two weeks speaks not only to our investigative tenacity, but also to the important physical and forensic evidence that we're able to collect when these crimes occurred. In both of these cases, alert members of the public immediately called 911 and provided valuable information to our responding officers that allowed our frontline officers and our specialized investigators to begin to collect evidence and track suspects immediately. And while we've obtained major breakthroughs in these two cases, we're also making significant progress on other serious crimes in the city. Among them, a targeted shooting that occurred on March 30th near Richards and Robson Street in downtown Vancouver, which we believe was linked to the ongoing provincial gang conflict. The investigation into the death of a 37-year-old woman found on the road near Kingsway and Victoria Drive in the early hours of March 30th and the murder of 24-year-old Shiraj Antille in South Vancouver last night. Oh, sorry, I'm sorry about Saturday night. There are many details about these cases I cannot share publicly. Doing so could compromise our ability to make arrests and obtain criminal charges. However, I can tell you regarding the investigation of the woman who died at Kingsway and Victoria on March 30th, we now have located the van that was seen in the area around the time of the woman's death, as well as the person we believe was driving the van at that time. And we will continue to pursue evidence to help us fully understand what happened. I'm asking anyone with information about this crime who has not yet spoken to our investigators to contact the VPD homicide section at 604-717-2500. Regarding the investigation into Saturday night's homicide in South Vancouver, I am able to confirm that the victim was a young international student who came to Canada from India. He was not known to be involved in any criminal activity. At this stage of the investigation, it is too early to say what events led to this fatal shooting, but those circumstances will form the focus of our continuing investigation. We have been in contact with Mr. Anthil's family in India, and we will investigate this crime until we find the person responsible. I'll now attempt to answer any questions that you may have. In sector road, regarding the Homer and Pender incident, can you tell us anything more about what they have prompted the incident and also how the victim is doing a little bit more detail? I can tell you that the victim is recovering. The victim has been released from hospital and is now recovering. The injuries are non-life-threatening, but very traumatic, as you can imagine. The I'm unable to share at this time information about the events that led up to the shooting, only to say that the victim was an innocent bystander. The victim had no involvement in anything to do with the suspect or the events that led up to the shooting. How fortunate do you think they are to be alive? The victim is incredibly fortunate, and while they are unfortunate to have been shot, they are incredibly lucky to have survived with the injuries they have. The suspect connected to the shooting known to police? Yes, they are. And now, I read in the release earlier today that it's not believed that the victim was the intended target. Who the police believe was the intended target? We're still trying to determine that in our investigation. We had initially reported that there may have been a verbal dispute between the pair. Are you now saying that's not accurate, or you just can't elaborate on that? I'm saying that's not accurate. The victim was not in a verbal dispute with the suspect. The victim was an innocent bystander who was doing nothing to involve themselves in the shooting. So if you can tell us as much as you can, how you know that this was not the intended target? What led you to believe them? It is based on our investigation, the evidence we've collected to date. We have painstakingly collected evidence. Our investigators have been working on this daily, if not 24 hours a day, and we have put together a sufficient body of evidence that allows us to be confident in that fact pattern. Okay, this next one is not meant to be as glib as it sounds, but I think you started with it. A lot of incidents in a very short amount of time. What's going on? I can't speak to, as I said, these incidents from based on our investigations to date. These incidents do not appear to be related. We have found no evidence to indicate that they are related. So I can't speak to a broader reason as to why there have been this number of violent incidents in such a short period of time. But I can assure the public that we are working incredibly hard to solve these incidents and to find those people responsible and to try and re-establish the sense of safety in the City of Vancouver. Is the suspect a member of the gang? Sorry? Is the suspect a member of the gang? In the Homicide Street? No. At this time, because of where we're at with the charge approval process and the pending criminal court case, I'm unable to go into any details about what occurred prior to the homicide. When police found her, was she still alive? I don't know. When police found her, she was fatally injured. And did she live on Rosemont or nearby? I'm not going to say that at this time. So she was out for a walk? Was she out for a walk or just trying to... I'm not willing to comment on that at this time. Inspector, regarding Gertrude Chong, she has a bit of a history with police. Is that correct? Gertrude Chong has been in contact with the police before, yes. No, not at this time. For the cells in Kuber shooting on the weekend, some of his friends have reached out and said that there's no way that people could have been involved in anything. And maybe this was a case of mistaken identity. Is there anything you can speak to when it comes to that? I can't speculate at this time. It's very early in the investigation. I can't speculate as to what the motive may be or how this has occurred. But I can say that at this time, based on our investigation, the victim, Mr. Anteel, does appear to be an international student who was in Vancouver. And we have no reason to believe he was involved in any criminal activity at all. Do you know how long he was here for? No, I don't know that. We believe that the shooting that occurred on Robson Street is related to the BC gang conflict, our provincial gang conflict that's going on right now. That's the only one. Yes. This is Robson going back there. 49-year-old victim. That's all kind of age difference there. And you can't give us the relationship. There's something odd about this. No, I wouldn't read into the age difference. And no, I'm not able to go into any detail about the relationship, just to say that they were known to each other. So, Inspector, it is great that you can solve a lot of cases in short period of time. But there seems like there's wide standards. There's international students involved that could be unrelated. How are you guys going to prevent this from happening? That's more concerning than from the public. Yes, we're doing our best to, as always, we're doing our best to be both reactive and proactive in our response to violent crime in the city of Vancouver. And while there are units such as the ones that I am in charge of that work reactively in order to solve violent crimes and hold people responsible for their actions, there are also teams that are working proactively to target those who are engaged in gang violence or gun violence in the city of Vancouver. Sorry to get you jumping around here so much. Just back to the Homer Street shooting, and I appreciate that police are doing everything they can to track down suspects. But this victim was shot in a very public place in early evening, 7 o'clock, I think it was around 7.50, right? April 3rd. What took police nearly 10 days to track down the suspects? Well, tracking down a person in the city of Vancouver in a large city such as the city of Vancouver is actually incredibly challenging to do. 10 days is, I believe, a very efficient use of our time in tracking this suspect down. As I said, my investigators were working tirelessly in order to track this person down, and we were able to do so thanks in large part, as I said, to the information that citizens gave us who were initially the 911 callers and initially our witnesses on scene, and then also through our investigative work after the fact we were able to track this person down in such a timely manner. Where did police find the suspect? He was arrested in the city of Vancouver. Can't elaborate on where? No. And the victim was a doctor? Is that right? We're not willing to talk about the identity of the victim at this time. And when we talk about all these incidents, there's four in a few weeks. I'm sure we'll all talk about it tonight, and all these different kinds of things that have happened, but what's the message to the people in Vancouver who've been a lot of conversation online and different forums, and what can you say to them when they think about public safety and the kind of crime that's been going on involving innocent bystanders? Yes. I mean, the message to the citizens of Vancouver is that I understand that this can be concerning for them. I understand that this can cause fear and make them concerned about how safe they are in the city of Vancouver, but I'm quite impressed, assured, that the Vancouver Police Department are proactively and reactively trying to address this gang violence or address violence in the city of Vancouver, and that our patrol officers are out there working day and night tirelessly to keep the citizens of Vancouver safe, and our investigators are also working tirelessly in order to bring those who are responsible for these violent acts to justice. I mean, two different sides of the same coin, where it's like these are these events in busy areas like downtown Vancouver, and then on the other side, very quiet residential streets near golf courses and schools, and that kind of thing. It seems like it's hard to pinpoint what could cause that and also prevent that. I mean, yes, definitely. The violence lately has spanned across the city of Vancouver. I believe that the Vancouver Police Department are doing our very best to be able to work to prevent this type of violence from happening by providing coverage across the city, regardless of the neighborhood in Vancouver where you live, the VPD are present and the VPD are there. And I also believe that by holding people accountable for their actions and bringing forward evidence to allow the Crown Prosecutors to lay charges, we are letting people know that this type of violent behavior in the city of Vancouver will be met with enforcement and will be met with charges. Inspector, is it common for police to kind of see trends where a lot of violent incidents happen in a short period of time and then nothing for a while? Is that something that just your history as an inspector you've noticed? Yes, certainly. I mean, violent crime everywhere is cyclical in nature. It certainly does occur more frequently than others. I don't believe there's a set pattern or any way to predict that pattern, but certainly we do see that and we react and staff our investigations and our investigative units and our operational units accordingly to be able to react and provide coverage during those times. Inspector, for the Robson incident, how are you able to determine the suspect's identity given that this incident was on the street and it took you 10 days to apprehend the suspect? Sorry, for the Robson Street shooting or for the Homer Street? The Homer Street. Sorry, for the Homer Street shooting. Through our investigative, various investigative techniques, we were able to identify the suspect and we became quite confident in our identification of the suspect early on and then it was just a matter of locating them and then collecting the evidence necessary to recommend a charge to Crown Council. And you said you had physical evidence of this person? We did see physical evidence during this investigation, yes. At the scene of the incident? We've collected physical evidence of a variety of different locations related to this investigation. I want to touch on the 37-year-old one who was found dead now. Apologies if I'm going to need to repeat yourself here a little bit, but you said police have not identified that a van believed to be connected. That's correct? Yes. Now, do police believe the driver of this van dropped this body off? What's the connection, I guess, to the van? Yeah, we believe we've identified the driver of the van at the time. However, at this point in our investigation we're not able to discuss what actually occurred that led up to the death of this woman at Kingsway in Victoria. 37-year-old victim known to police? I'm not willing to comment on the victim at this time. Okay, thank you very much, everyone. Appreciate your time.