The owner of a business that was shot at in Cloverdale Thursday says he doesn’t know why they were targeted.
Chase Swanson-Karpes says they hadn’t received any extortion calls, and he believes it was a case of mistaken identity, as the business next door had been targeted in an extortion-related shooting last week.
The Surrey Police Service (SPS) says it was called to the area of 175 Street and 58 Avenue shortly before 2:30 p.m. after reports of shots fired.
Police say at least one business was damaged by gunshots.
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“At first, we didn’t have any idea or any reason behind it, but once we heard [about] next door, it kind of put a little bit of closure on our end,” said Swanson-Karpes.
“It still sucks, and it isn’t the greatest news, but ultimately we know it wasn’t targeted for us in the first place.”
On Thursday, the SPS said the motive was unknown, but at the time, it wasn’t believed to be related to extortion.
Swanson-Karpes says they aren’t too worried about what happened, and says he is telling his employees he is confident this was a one-off.
However, he says, the incident is bad news for the community overall.
“No one wants to see it happen,” he said.
“I live in Abbotsford, so it’s something that’s pretty common out there as well. So any business owners, I think there’s always that fear now that something like that could happen.”
Anyone with information or video footage is asked to call the SPS non-emergency line at 604-599-0502 and refer to file number 26-50217 (SP).