Police have identified the man shot dead at his Upper Lonsdale home Saturday as 69-year old Rostam Poulad-Noshiravan.
Poulad-Noshiravan, a well-known promoter of Persian cultural events on the North Shore and in the Lower Mainland for many years, was at his home in the 4000-block of St. Georges Avenue around 1:20 p.m. when an unknown suspect shot him in the chest.
"Mr. Poulad-Noshiravan was not known to police and investigators are in the process of determining a motive for this case. We are asking anyone who may have information about this case to please come forward," said Sgt. Bari Emam, Integrated Homicide Investigation Team spokesman in a press release on Sunday.
"The victim's family are shocked by this incident and also hoping that tips from the public and those who may know something can assist the investigators in getting some answers. " After receiving a witness report that a silver or grey import car was spotted speeding from the area, North Vancouver RC MP and West Vancouver RC MP set up road blocks on the Lions Gate Bridge and Ironworkers' Memorial Second Narrows Crossing, to screen vehicles for one matching the witnesses' description. The roadblocks only allowed traffic to trickle through and traffic on the highway and feeder routes to the bridges came to a crawl for hours.
"It's based on priorities in a high-risk investigation, such as a shooting where we have a victim and where we have a description of a vehicle," said. Cpl. Richard De Jong, North Vancouver RC MP spokesman. "It's not unusual to do. It's just that on a Saturday afternoon with high-volume traffic, it was certainly wellknown."
Police lifted the roadblock just before 3 p.m. On Tuesday, IHIT was not prepared to say if any more information about a possible suspect or motive had been revealed.
Poulad-Noshiravan's death is being strongly felt in the North Shore's Persian community, especially among the artists who he helped promote.
"Everybody is shocked about what happened because we know him as a really good guy - a nice guy, helping the community," said Hossein Behroozinia, a North Shore-based musician who has known Poulad-Noshiravan for the last eight years. Poulad-Noshiravan had hundreds of people dropping by his home to purchase tickets for Persian concerts and shows.
Given that the victim was so well regarded, Behroozinia couldn't speculate as to why someone would want him dead.
"Everybody wants to know. Everybody is waiting to see what the cause was for someone to do that to him," Behroozinia said. "We just lost a very active man in the community. It's very sad for everybody."
