Stray-bullet death of 85-year-old in Burnaby part of decades-long pattern across Canada

Chang Yong Cho, 85, was shot dead in his Burnaby home on Aug. 30 by a stray bullet. CTV News reports at least 30 similar cases in Canada since the 1990s, with 16 fatalities.

Innocent bystanders: stray-bullet deaths have claimed at least 16 lives in Canada since the 1990s

The death of 85-year-old Chang Yong Cho, killed by a stray bullet inside his Burnaby, B.C., home on Aug. 30, is the latest in a long series of cases documented by ctvnews.ca in which bystanders have been struck by gunfire not intended for them.

Police said Cho was hit around 1:30 a.m. by a bullet fired roughly a block away. Investigators have called on a group of youth believed to be involved to "do the right thing" and come forward.

Cho is among at least nine people across Canada struck by stray bullets in the past 10 years, and more than 30 since the 1990s — at least 16 of whom died.

Among the victims is 15-year-old Alfred Wong, shot in 2018 while riding in the back seat of his family's car after dinner in Vancouver. The vehicle was passing a gang shootout on Broadway when Wong was hit. Kane Carter was sentenced in July to two life terms for second-degree murder for killing Wong and an alleged gangster who died in the same incident.

Eight-year-old JahVai Roy was struck by a bullet while asleep in bed in Toronto in August of last year and died. In April 2025, 21-year-old Indian student Harsimrat Randhawa was shot while waiting for a bus in Hamilton, Ont., and later died. Dante Andreatta Marroquin, 12, was killed in Toronto in 2020 when two men fired dozens of rounds from a moving vehicle.

Earlier cases include five-year-old Ethan Yellowbird, who died in 2011 after being struck while he slept on the Samson Cree reserve south of Edmonton, and 11-year-old Ephraim Brown, killed in 2007 after being hit in the neck by a bullet while attending a birthday party outside a Toronto housing complex.

Not all victims died. Laurie Tinga survived a shot to the head in 2005 while watching television in her Port Moody, B.C., home, in what police described as a gang shootout nearby.

The cases span multiple provinces and more than three decades, involving victims of widely varying ages — in public spaces, at social gatherings, and inside their own homes.

Source: Google News CA — Crime (EN)