Kyle Gianis shot again
Castanet Staff - Aug 1, 2021 / 12:50 pm | Story: 341694
Photo: ironathletics_official Instagram
UPDATE 12:50 p.m.
Kyle Gianis has survived yet another attempt on his life.
Kelowna RCMP confirms one of the men shot outside a restaurant on Pandosy street Saturday night was Gianis, who has survived other assassination attempts as recently as March.
Gianis was treated for non life-threatening injuries and has since been released from hospital.
The other victim, a 25-year old man from Surrey remains in hospital with what police describe as "life-threatening injuries."
“We have reason to believe this was a targeted attack on these two men,” says Insp. Beth McAndie of the Kelowna RCMP.
“Because of his criminal activities and associates, Mr. Gianis poses a threat to our community and the public in general, and we are putting all our resources into investigating this newest incident.”
Witnesses reported a man fleeing the scene in a silver SUV. No arrests have been made at this time.
“While investigating the scene of the shooting, frontline officers located what is believed to be an undetonated improvised explosive device,” states Cpl. Jocelyn Noseworthy, Media Relations Officer for the Kelowna RCMP.
“Police immediately cordoned off the area. It will remain closed until officers with the RCMP Explosives Disposal Unit have safely dealt with the device.”
The RCMP bomb squad is also dealing with an unrelated explosive device found in a West Kelowna home Sunday.
Gianis is believed to have gang ties and he's survived a number of attempts on his life. Saturday's shooting was the fourth assassination attempt on him since 2017.
The most recent was in March, outside Global Fitness off Kelowna's Burtch Road. He was injured by gunfire in that incident.
His home in West Kelowna was also raided in March by the Combined Special Forces Enforcement Unit — the province’s police gang unit.
In 2017, he was the target of a shooting in Langley outside a restaurant that ended up killing his friend Tyler Pastuck. David Tull was sentenced to nearly 12 years in jail for conspiracy to murder Gianis in the 2017 shooting.
Then in 2018, Surrey nurse Paul Bennett was killed when an assassin searching for Gianis went to the wrong home, reported the Vancouver Sun at the time.
Gianis was sentenced to 13 years in prison in Washington State in 2008 for smuggling methamphetamine precursors into the U.S. He was transferred to Canada and released on parole in 2013.
In 2007, the CBC reported that Gianis was the occupant of a home that was shot at two nights in a row.
Photo: Cindy White
A canopy covers a Mercedes-Benz on Pandosy Street Sunday morning.
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There has been a spike of gang-on-gang violence on the lower mainland in Canada. Because of the direct highway connection between Vancouver and Kelowna, Kelowna has become a bit of a resort town for a lot of Vancouver's affluent, and sometime their problems migrate over.
As a result, sometimes gang tensions flash over in Kelowna. The most infamous was the shooting of a gang leader outside of a casino in broad daylight.
In this case, someone wants this guy dead, and I dont know which, in a dark humor sense, is funnier, the fact he now has the reputation of a dead man walking; or the incompetent attempts at his life.
