IHIT releases sketch of suspect in deadly Surrey taxi shooting
Posted August 26, 2022 1:39 pm.
Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT) has released a sketch of the suspect involved in the Surrey taxi shooting that left one man dead and another injured.
According to Surrey RCMP, at 2:20 p.m. on Aug. 9, police were notified that shots were fired at a taxi in a parking lot in the Riverside Heights Shopping Centre on 108 Avenue.
Police say when they arrived, both people in the cab had been shot.
Mounties confirmed, at the time, that the passenger had died, while the driver of the taxi was transported to hospital with “serious injuries.”
“Initial indications are that this was a targeted incident with the 30-year-old deceased man being known to police,” Surrey RCMP Media Relations Officer Cpl. Vanessa Munn said at the time. “This daytime shooting in a strip mall parking lot demonstrated a complete disregard for the safety of others and resulted in serious injuries to a taxi driver.”
The man who was killed was identified as 30-year-old David Chavez-Jara of Surrey. He was well-known to police, and was recently convicted of a drug trafficking charge.
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The shooting also left the taxi industry shaken.
“Taxi drivers are out there to serve the community. They’re part of the community. They also have families to go back to, right? So their lives are as important as anybody else in the community. As such, they should be protected,” Mohan Kang, head of the BC Taxi Association, told CityNews.
“Certainly we are concerned,” Kang said. “It is not only the public safety issue for the drivers, I think the community at large should be waking up and saying, ‘enough is enough’ and doing something about it.”
Kang says he was hurt and shocked to learn about the shooting in broad daylight.
“You don’t expect these kind of things, especially with the way things are going, it reminds me that we’re going back,” he said, adding the shootings over the past couple of years have him worried.
IHIT is asking that anyone who can identify the man pictured or who has any information regarding the shooting, to contact the IHIT Information Line at 1-877-551-IHIT (4448) or by email at
ihitinfo@rcmp-grc.gc.ca.
With files from Charlie Carey, Hana Mae Nassar and Denise Wong
