Crunching over the crispy, snow-covered soccer field, in full view of snowmen clinging to life in the low glow of the winter sun, Dover Park is picture-perfect.
It was late morning, but the only signs of daily life were two people walking their dogs at opposite ends of the park, while a few others went about their business, trying to stay upright on the treacherous sidewalks.
Standing in the middle of the family park — near Westminster Highway and No. 2 Road — it’s difficult to imagine that, 10 years ago, on Jan. 4, 2007, at around 7:20 p.m., gunfire cracked the cold evening air as a hail of bullets fizzed from a veritable arsenal in a gangland, Wild West-style shootout.
Even more astonishing was the fact that, despite being armed to the teeth with at least four semi-automatic handguns and two semi-automatic assault rifles, only three gangsters were shot and they all survived.
Adding to the miraculous fallout of the infamous shooting was the absence of innocent victims, given that a fistful of the bullets from the 150 spent casings scattered across the length and breadth of Dover Park found their way into six surrounding housing complexes and also in the adjacent City of Richmond works yard on Lynas Lane.
There is, however, as far as one former Dover Park resident is concerned, a small reminder from that dark day and it can be seen on the aluminum crossbar of the goalpost at the south end of the soccer field.
According to the man, a senior in his 70s who asked not to be named, the centimetre-wide hole on the crossbar was courtesy of one of those stray bullets. He calls it “bullet No. 151.”
“For years, I used to show the kids in our family the crossbar on the soccer goalposts,” he told the Richmond News.
“You can see where it went in and where it tried to get out. I assume it’s still in there, because there’s no exit point and they never cut the goalposts apart to get it.”
Although he doesn’t remember hearing the gunshots, he recalled the time: 7:22 p.m.
“I always remember that. Everything went out; the TV, the cable, everything; they must have shot a power line or something, I don’t know,” he said.
“I went out for a walk to see what was happening and everyone was out of their houses and the police were everywhere. The whole area was shut down for three days. Everyone was pissed off.
“On the fourth day, I went for a walk around there, you know, out of curiosity. I walked past the goalposts and sure enough, there it was: Bullet No. 151.”
As she held tightly onto her two husky dogs and picked her way precariously across Dover Crescent’s ice-bound sidewalks, Sylvia Chiu had no idea today, Wednesday, was the tenth anniversary of the mass shooting.
What Chiu hadn’t forgotten was the night that it happened, given that she was studying in her bedroom not much more than 100 yards away from the gangsters’ potentially deadly bullet fest.
“Our neighbour got a bullet through their window; it ended up in their closet. It was lucky they were out at the time,” said Chiu, recalling she would have been 14 at the time.
“All I can remember was the sound of firecrackers going off and then, about half an hour later, all these sirens. I didn’t think anything of it at the time.
“In the morning, though, it was chaos; there were police everywhere and we weren’t allowed to leave the house for days.”
An undercover police officer came to the door on the first morning, said Chiu, to make sure they were all OK.
“I think they had to check all the houses around here in case someone got shot by a stray bullet,” she said.
“One of the people we knew that walked her dog in the park was told by someone – who she later presumed was involved in the shooting – to ‘get the hell out of here’ just before it happened.
“That was scary that someone knew what was about to happen.”
Asked about bullet No. 151 in the goalpost, Chiu said, “I had no idea about that, I’ll have to check it out.”
Although it was never fully revealed by police, the Dover Park shoot-out was understood to have included gang members from various cultures involved in the crack cocaine trade and was precipitated by two previous gangland shootings in North Vancouver and New Westminster.
Vahid Mahanian, Nikki Tajali and Sahand Askari — all known to belong to the same gang, according to police at the time — suffered serious, but survivable injuries in the vicious gunfight.
Reporting on the shootout for the Richmond News was Eve Edmonds, who’s now the editor. At the time, Edmonds wrote:
The smoke had barely cleared from a local park before cellphones lit up with crew members looking for more weapons and ammunition, as well as bullet-proof vests, according to a source.
“Already there were calls around the street for ammunition to be bought. The minute it happened my cellphone and other cellphones lit up. This crew is gearing up for another round,” said the man, who used to be involved in gangs and claims to know two of the three men who were shot.
“This is not over. And it wasn’t the beginning either,” he added.
Richmond RCMP’s media spokesperson at the time, Cpl. Peter Thiessen, told how it was “…only by the grace of God that nobody got killed and nobody got injured that wasn’t directly involved with this shooting.”
The only charge known to have resulted from the Dover Park shooting was laid on United Nations Gang-linked Matin Bin Laden Pouyan, who pleaded guilty later in 2007 to illegal gun possession and was given a two-year sentence.
When Pouyan was convicted in 2007, he was already under a lifetime firearms ban after he opened fire in a crowded Abbotsford nightclub on Valentine’s Day 2004.
Mahanian was reported missing by relatives in July, 2011 and later found dead.
Tajali’s brother, David, who had been linked to two local gangs at the time, had survived at least two attempts on his life — both in Richmond, including at Dover Park — before being shot to death behind the wheel of his BMW in Calgary on Sept. 6, 2009.
A week after the 2007 Dover Park shooting, 35-year-old Ladner dad Kirk Holified was found murdered on Shell Road near Westminster Highway in a vehicle that was said to be similar to be the one driven by David Tajali. Police said at the time the hit was mistaken identity and the killer has never been found.
Two years after the murder, Holifield's name was finally cleared, along with a list of other innocent victims of gang violence, at an RCMP press conference.
