A suspected gunman from Edmonton who was shot to death in Langley on Saturday had convictions for possessing firearms and cocaine in two Prairie provinces.
Johnathan Hebrada-Walters, 38, died on 84th Avenue near 196 Street around 6 p.m. on Sept. 21 in an exchange of gunfire that left a prominent Brothers Keepers gangster wounded.
Postmedia has learned that the other victim, Barinder (Shrek) Dhaliwal, was shot twice before fleeing the scene in a black SUV. He was stopped on 208th Street and 79B Avenue and rushed to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Dhaliwal has been the subject of public warnings by police who said he could be targeted in the B.C. gang conflict. His two brothers were killed in shootings in 2021 and 2022.
Police are investigating whether Hebrada-Walters might have been a hired hitman, sources said.
Hebrada-Walters’ most recent conviction was in January 2018 in Manitoba, according to court records.
He was the passenger in a vehicle when it was stopped by Winnipeg police in May 2014 during a period of “heightened concern over gang-related violence, including a high-profile shooting,” a court ruling said.
Hebrada-Walters was sitting in the back seat and not following instructions to show his hands. Officers had their guns drawn.
The officers grabbed a cellphone from Hebrada-Walters and pulled him from the vehicle.
One of the officers “noticed that next to where Hebrada-Walters had been sitting in the vehicle there was a firearm. It was subsequently identified as the .45-calibre Glock handgun.”
“Gun, gun, gun,” police shouted as they saw the Glock. Another firearm was also found in the car.
Hebrada-Walters was convicted of several firearms counts, including possession of a loaded restricted firearm, unauthorized possession of a firearm while being an occupant of a motor vehicle, and possessing a firearm with the serial number removed.
He was sentenced to six years and lost an appeal of his conviction and sentence in October 2019.
The Alberta man was also convicted in Saskatchewan in 2012 of possession of cocaine near Saskatoon two years earlier.
Again Hebrada-Walters was a passenger in a rental vehicle that was pulled over by police after the occupants were yelling at two women who were trying to get away from them.
“As the women turned the corner the car was following them and driving alongside them with Mr. Hebrada-Walters yelling at the women,” a court ruling in the case said.
Hebrada-Walters refused to provide an officer with identification and “was fidgeting and nervous and would not look him in the eye.” He was trying to conceal a cellphone.
Police found references to cocaine trafficking on the phone and called in a drug dog. “Hebrada-Walters was taken to the police station and strip searched. Found on him in his underwear were 12.5 grams of cocaine in a large sandwich bag which had three smaller bags of 2.7 grams each and 11 spitballs of 0.4 grams each,” the court ruling said.
He was convicted in March 2012 and sentenced to two years less a day. He lost an appeal a year later despite arguing the police had violated his Charter rights when he was searched.
Hebrada-Walters was also found with several others in a Winnipeg apartment in May 2012 where police seized a semi-automatic handgun, ammunition, a machete, bear spray, drugs and cash, according to a news report at the time.