an Iranian-Canadian gangster who died execution-style more than a year ago.
Someone shot David Tajali, 33, and his younger brother, Niki, in a nightclub parking lot in Calgary, Alberta, September 6, 2009.
Police returned to the area last Tuesday to film a Crime Stoppers re-enactment in hopes it will generate tips.
“This was a targeted attack,” Staff Sgt. Doug Andrus, of the Calgary police homicide unit, said of Tajali’s murder in Calgary.
Tajali had moved to Calgary from Vancouver, where there is a thriving Iranian gang scene and where Tajali had been targeted before.
When Calgary police and paramedics responded to the gunshots, they found Tajali fatally wounded behind the wheel of his BMW sedan after he and a female passenger managed to drive a short distance before he was overcome by his injuries.
Niki Tajali was also wounded in the exchange, but survived. Investigators believe someone driving a dark-colored SUV drove Niki to the hospital.
In the months following the shooting, police released sketches of two men seen in the area. Witnesses saw the suspects running eastbound.
Investigators recently revealed they believe a clean-shaven man depicted in one sketch is the suspected gunman, while the second, bearded suspect is believed to have acted as a lookout.
Postmedia News reported that police have spoken with several people who were inside the nightclub with the Tajali brothers before the shooting, but they have yet to identify and interview two potentially key witnesses—two women seen speaking with the suspected lookout near the entrance of the parking lot.
Both Tajali brothers were involved in a war between rival Iranian gangs in the Vancouver area, and David survived a previous attempt on his life in
2006.
David Tajali was once aligned with the North Vancouver Persian Pride gang and later the United Nations gang. Niki has some of the same affiliations.
With the killing unsolved, it’s unclear whether the shooting is related to the Tajalis’ history in Vancouver or whether they became entangled in a dispute while living in Calgary. “We are looking at their past,” Andrus said.
Despite no recorded run-ins with police during the year or so he was in Calgary, David Tajali was no stranger to law enforcement in his home province of British Columbia.
Tajali survived a shooting at his apartment in 2006, and B.C. police have explored the possibility that a homicide involving an innocent man in January 2007 may have been a second, botched attempt on his life.
The victim in that case, Kirk Holifield, drove a truck that was the same make and model as Tajali’s. And he was driving near Tajali’s home when he was shot to death.
Tajali was arrested in a dial-a-dope scheme in 2004, but those charges were dropped.
Niki Tajali was injured in a gunfight in a residential neighborhood near Vancouver around the same time Holifield was killed. Police said at least six gunmen exchanged more than 150 shots in a park frequented by families and dog-walkers.