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Red Scorpion with links to Nanaimo shot dead at Aldergrove fast-food restaurant

VANCOUVER — A high-profile Red Scorpion whose brother was convicted in the Surrey Six murders has been shot and killed outside an Aldergrove fast-food restaurant.
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Windows are shattered after a fatal shooting outside an Aldergrove McDonald’s restaurant.

VANCOUVER — A high-profile Red Scorpion whose brother was convicted in the Surrey Six murders has been shot and killed outside an Aldergrove fast-food restaurant.

Justin Lee Haevischer, 33, is believed to have been blasted by two shooters outside the McDonald’s at 264th Street and 56th Avenue about 8 p.m Tuesday.

Sgt. Frank Jang of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team said the victim was pronounced dead at the scene.

Jang said it was a miracle no one else had been wounded in the brazen early-evening shooting that left windows of the McDonald’s shattered. “It is a miracle, by God’s grace, whatever language you choose to use, that nobody else was hurt from this,” he said.

“Shortly after peak dinner time at McDonald’s — something I think all of us can relate to having dinner with our family at a McDonald’s — and for this to happen it is unacceptable. It shows the brazenness, the recklessness of these people.”

About 30 minutes after the shooting, Abbotsford Police received a report of an SUV burning in the 29700-block of Montesina Avenue.

Jang did not release Haevischer’s name but said he “was known to police and had ties to gang activity. This is believed to be a targeted incident.”

Postmedia confirmed the identity of the victim through several sources.

Haevischer grew up in Nanaimo, where he has had several criminal convictions over the years. He was convicted of mischief there in 2015 and received a nine-month suspended sentence. In 2008, he got a day in jail for an assault in Nanaimo. Also in 2008, he was fined $200 for wilfully resisting a police officer.

Haevischer’s older brother Cody was convicted, along with Red Scorpion gangster Matthew Johnston, of first-degree murder and conspiracy in the Oct. 19, 2007, slaughter of six men — including two bystanders — in a Surrey penthouse apartment.

It remains B.C.’s deadliest gangland attack. Both Cody Haevischer and Johnston are appealing their convictions.

Justin Haevischer was a regular at the Surrey Six trial. His black scorpion neck tattoo could be seen over his shirt collars. He was later charged with accessory to murder after the fact for assisting his brother’s former girlfriend to dispose of evidence of the murders. In 2016, he pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and was sentenced to 20 months in jail.

He admitted that he and the girlfriend were at Haevischer’s Surrey apartment when the killers returned from the Balmoral Towers carrying a bag containing cellphones and other evidence from the crime scene.