Chang Yong Cho dies in B.C. stray-bullet shooting, one of dozens of cases in Canada

The death of 85-year-old Chang Yong Cho in his Burnaby home is the latest in dozens of cases in which people have been killed or injured by stray bullets in Canada over the past 30 years.

Police said Tuesday that Cho was killed at about 1:30 a.m. on Aug. 30 by a bullet fired about a block from his home. Investigators have appealed to a group of youth believed to be involved to come forward.

Cho and Alfred Wong are among at least nine people across Canada struck by stray bullets in the past 10 years, and among more than 30 since the 1990s. At least 16 of those people died. In 2018, Wong, 15, was riding in the back seat as his family drove home from dinner in Vancouver when he was hit by a bullet while their vehicle passed a shootout between rival gangs on Broadway. Kane Carter was sentenced in July to two life terms for second-degree murder in the deaths of Wong and an alleged gangster killed in the same shootout.

Other victims include eight-year-old JahVai Roy, who died after being shot in bed in Toronto in August last year; 21-year-old Indian student Harsimrat Randhawa, who was killed while waiting for a bus in Hamilton, Ont., in April 2025; and 12-year-old Dante Andreatta Marroquin, killed in Toronto in 2020 when two men fired dozens of rounds from a moving vehicle.

Five-year-old Ethan Yellowbird died after being hit by a bullet while sleeping on the Samson Cree reserve south of Edmonton in 2011. Ephraim Brown, 11, died after being shot in the neck while attending an outdoor birthday party at a Toronto housing complex in 2007. Laurie Tinga survived being shot in the head by a stray bullet while watching television at her Port Moody, B.C., home in 2005; police described that incident as a gang shootout.

This report by Ashley Joannou of The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2026.