Skip to main content
crime

Jonathan Bacon walks outside Abbotsford Court House, June 6, 2008.Globe files

The way in which Jonathan Bacon was gunned down in broad daylight in a busy tourist neighbourhood in Kelowna may have been shocking, but his death wasn't.

Mr. Bacon was the eldest of three brothers belonging to British Columbia's most notorious family.

Police have long associated Jonathan, Jarrod and Jamie with the Red Scorpions, a gang engaged in a drug war. At one point in 2008, officers warned the public to stay away from Jarrod and Jamie, saying anyone in their social sphere could be caught in the crossfire of a targeted hit.



Jonathan Bacon's death on the weekend in a shooting that also injured five people – including at least two women – is a renewal of violence that played out on the streets of Metro Vancouver two years ago.

He was out of jail awaiting a Supreme Court of Canada decision of his claim that police violated his Charter rights when they found drugs and weapons in his car and home in 2005.

The youngest of the brothers, Jamie, is perhaps the most notorious of the three; the most common footage of Jamie is of a muscular man in a sleeveless shirt, arms covered almost entirely in tattoos, head shaved.

He, too, has argued that his Charter rights were violated.

He is facing a first-degree murder charge in the deaths of six people in a Surrey apartment in October, 2007. One man has pleaded guilty in the case, along with three others. A trial date has not yet been set.

Last year, Jamie complained of the conditions of his detention at the pre-trial facility in Surrey where he has been kept in segregation – complaints that ranged from the mundane to the serious. In a scathing ruling, the judge said authorities at the facility have been acting as agents for police and called the situation "scandalous."

Jamie Bacon was convicted in May, 2010, of weapons charges, marking the first substantial guilty verdict against any of the siblings. He was found guilty of 10 gun-related charges and one charge of possessing oxycodone. The middle brother, Jarrod, was acquitted in that case.

The charges arose after the youngest Bacon survived an April, 2007, shooting with just a bruise thanks to the body armour he was wearing.

At various times during their run-ins with the law, the three have lived in the same Abbotsford house as their parents, who frequently accompany them to court.

The father, David, worked for the Abbotsford school district but was reportedly placed on paid leave in 2008 out of police concerns that anyone associated with the Bacon sons was in danger.



Interact with The Globe