Elderly couple aid police in stakeout in Oliver

By Dan Walton

It was quite the commotion on Tulameen Street when cops commandeered the home of Gaye and Dal Carter last Wednesday night.

Across the street from the Carter’s house was a motorhome that police believed to be occupied by 45-year-old Afshin Maleki Ighani, who is accused of shooting a man whose property the motorhome was on earlier in the day. Gaye said that motorhome had never been parked there in the past.

“It was sort of an exciting time for us. We’ve never seen a takedown like that except for in the movies,” she said.

Around 7 p.m. on April 19, Gaye was in her backyard when she heard anxiety in a neighbour’s shouting.

“I could tell by her voice that she was upset about something,” said Gaye.

She noticed police were present on her street.

About an hour after that, police were on the megaphone to order Ighani out of the motorhome.

“It went on for about a half an hour that we could hear the loud speaker. And we could see police everywhere.”

Dal, who’s partially blind, asked if somebody was in their yard. And there was somebody in their yard – a police officer was camping out in their garden.

Despite the heavy police presence, nothing was happening and Gaye wanted to get back to her chores.

“Eventually I came out and just closed the curtains because I wanted to do something in the kitchen.”

A police officer saw her draw the curtains, came up to her house and told her again that she would be safer in the basement in case gunfire ended up being exchanged.

Dal has mobility issues so they both hid in a main-floor bedroom instead.

The officer, who was previously crouched in her garden, asked if he could station himself inside of the Carter house.

“He said, ‘Would it be okay if I come in and position myself in your window, because your window is open.’ So I pulled a planter out of the way and got a chair there. He got at  the  window and positioned himself there.”

Gaye didn’t see his firearm but assumed the officer in her house had a pistol. She saw another officer on the patio of a neighbour’s duplex in position with a rifle.

“Every once in a while I was peeking out to see what was happening. We waited in there for the longest time,” Gaye recalled. “So much was happening, it was a little bit scary. This was at about 11:45  – it was really miserable out there.”

After midnight rolled around, Gaye asked how much longer it was going to take. The officer told her that a SWAT team was on its way and she was free to go to sleep if she would like.

“Yeah, like I’m going to get any sleep.”

But she went to a bedroom in the basement anyway to try and sleep.

“I couldn’t sleep in my own bedroom, it was too close in case bullets started to fly.”

Around 2 a.m., Gaye said it sounded like the officer closed the window and exited her home.

The climax to the evening came around 3 a.m. There were “horrible noises that I thought was a high range rifle, a really loud noise, and a police dog barking. Every time there was a loud bang it was like the dog wanted to go in after it. That dog barking and loud noises was the scariest part for me.”

At about 4 a.m., the motorhome was towed away. A second tow truck was required though – the first one was too small, Gaye said.

Police had surrounded the property on her street because of an alleged shooting that took place at another location earlier that day.

Ighani was never apprehended in the motorhome, nor was he caught in Oliver at all. He was finally busted on Saturday after a wild, video-game style police chase in Princeton.

The alleged victim is very well known to the Carter’s. On Thursday, they saw him return home with his arm bandaged up, presumably from a bullet wound.

“Sorry about the police, Gaye,” he hollered. “I love you”

“And I said, ‘It’s okay. Love you too.’”

Dal said their neighbour is “a real nice guy” from a hard-working family, and he was once awarded with an Order of Canada for saving a girl from a burning home.

“To us he’s always been a hero,” Gaye said. “He’s a wonderful guy.”

The man is now in his early 50s, but the Carters – who’ve lived on Tulameen Street for nearly 40 years – watched their children grow up with him, so they still think of him as a kid.

“He used to ride his bike up and down the street on his back wheel,” Dal said.

The arrest

Ighani was apprehended following a police chase on April 22.

At approximately 11 am the Princeton RCMP received information that an adult female had allegedly been forcibly confined in her vehicle by Ighani. He had been the subject of a warrant for attempted murder, stemming from the shooting in Oliver last week.

Saturday’s incident in Princeton began with a male and a female being in the company of Ighani in the man’s car. It was reported that while in a restaurant parking lot, the male was ordered out of the car and Ighani left with the man’s girlfriend still in the car. The male victim then allegedly stole a motorcycle from the restaurant parking lot and attempted to follow Ighani.

All three individuals were known to each other.

RCMP checkpoints were set up in the Keremeos area in efforts to intercept the vehicle, however, only the male on the motorcycle was observed coming through, at which time he failed to stop for police.

Penticton RCMP officers located the stolen motorcycle in Okanagan Falls shortly after. The man had abandoned the motorcycle and fled the area on foot.

An RCMP helicopter had been dispatched with police eventually being able to locate the vehicle via a cell phone ping in the Manning Park area headed towards Princeton.

At one point the vehicle was spotted by the RCMP helicopter entering the town of Princeton where officers on the ground converged on it in a local trailer home park. RCMP officers noted that the vehicle was still occupied by Ighani and the woman. At one point in the effort to arrest Ighani, an officer discharged a firearm towards the vehicle.

Ighani fled the vehicle without the woman who remained inside the car, however, he was tracked and captured by an RCMP dog team a short distance away in a wooded area.

Extensive investigative efforts continued on throughout the week since the shooting incident in Oliver. They involved a large number of police resources from various detachments.

“We are relieved that we were able to take him into custody without any harm to the public or our officers,” said Cpl. Dan Moskaluk.

“We also thank the media and the public for the receipt of several sightings since his warrant being issued and made public.”

Ighani remains in custody and faces numerous charges. Records show he was supposed to be deported from Canada for a previous weapons conviction, but he was granted a reprieve, with an order to abstain from criminality.