June 23, 2014 - 11:08 AM
VANCOUVER - Vancouver police say they've arrested two men in connection with a murder outside a halfway house that investigators believe was a case of mistaken identity.
Thirty-five-year-old Raj Soomel was shot dead in September 2009 in what police described as a gang-related shooting.
Investigators later said they believed another man who was also living at the halfway house was the intended target, and Soomel was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Vancouver police Insp. Laurence Rankin says 32-year-old Colin Stewart and 35-year-old Kevin Jones were arrested last week and charged with first-degree murder.
Rankin says police believe the intended target was Randy Naicker (NAY'-ker), who was killed almost three years later in a shooting in Port Moody.
Soomel's death led Vancouver's mayor to say people who could be targeted by gangs shouldn't be kept in communities near children, and the organization that ran the halfway house said it would no longer accept criminals with gang ties.
News from © The Canadian Press, 2014