“The prosecutor concluded the charge approval standard was longer met.” — Damienne Darby, of the B.C. Prosecution Service
Just weeks after former Abbotsford gangster Jarrod Bacon was arrested in a shooting in Northern B.C., the charge against him has been dropped.
Bacon, one of three Abbotsford brothers who were part of the Red Scorpion gang, had been charged with aggravated assault in connection with the Jan. 29 shooting in Fort Nelson. His co-accused, John Chasse, faced one count of assault.
Both are free men.
Damienne Darby of the B.C. Prosecution Service confirmed in an email Tuesday that the charges have been stayed.
“The decision to stay the charges in this case against both Mr. Bacon and Mr. Chasse was made after further information was received by the prosecutor with conduct of the file,” Darby said.
“After reviewing this information and the rest of the materials provided by the investigative agency, the prosecutor concluded the charge approval standard was no longer met. In these circumstances, a stay of proceedings is the appropriate course of action.”
She said she couldn’t provide more information in accordance with the service’s policies.
“The B.C. Prosecution Service does not disclose the reasoning behind decisions that involve the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in individual files,” she said.
The two men were arrested Feb. 1 in connection with the shooting, which took place in front of a business in the area of the 5000-block of 51st Avenue West in Fort Nelson. The victim is expected to recover.
One of the suspects was arrested following a traffic stop and the second was picked up after the RCMP searched a Fort Nelson home.
One source said that Bacon had been living in the region for over a year.
Until the shooting, the middle Bacon brother had not been in the news since March 2021 when the Parole Board of Canada issued more conditions on his statutory release after he had violated the conditions already in place on three occasions.
The 2021 decision said Bacon wanted “to be released in another region for safety concerns.”
“File information reveals that you are identified as a member of the Red Scorpions and the Bacon Brothers’ organization, which is very influential in Western Canada, and has links with a notorious criminal organization,” the board member said.
While she didn’t identify the criminal organization, an earlier parole decision said it was the Hells Angels.
Bacon, his brothers Jamie and Jonathan and other Red Scorpion gangsters were targeted by UN gangsters at the height of the Lower Mainland gang conflict.
Jamie was arrested in the 2007 Surrey Six murders and later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder. He remains behind bars.
Jonathan, who had just formed the Wolfpack alliance with Hells Angel Larry Amero and Independent Soldier James Riach, was killed in a targeted shooting in Kelowna in August 2011. Three UN gangsters were convicted.
Jarrod Bacon was convicted in 2012 of conspiracy to traffic 100 kilograms of cocaine and initially sentenced to 12 years, which was later increased by the B.C. Court of Appeal to 14 years.
Bluesky: @kimbolan.bsky.social