Shooting Victim Described Suspect Vehicle

By Avneet Kaur, Special to Sikh News Network
Posted: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 | 06:12 pm

Gurmej Singh Atwal, one of two Sikh men gunned down in California nearly a year ago, gave a partial description of the suspect vehicle just before his death, which has lead to a composite picture of the pick-up truck allegedly involved in the unsolved double homicide.

Kevin Papineau, lead detective at the Elk Grove Police Department, described the vehicle as a lifted (raised) gold or tan full-size pick-up truck with a standard cab. Its model, make and year are unknown, he said at a Feb. 8 news conference. The description was made public nearly a year after the men were killed.

“We were able to complete and release the vehicle sketch based on review of information and ongoing investigation the week prior,” Papineau told SikhNN by email. “We released it as soon as we were able to reliably corroborate the limited description.”

A composite image was pieced together from a description Gurmej Singh gave shortly before his death, other witnesses, and bits of a surveillance video taken from a significant distance. The police department would not disclose any further information about the surveillance video.

Witnesses saw the vehicle speeding out of the Elk Grove neighborhood where Gurmej Singh, 78, and Surinder Singh, 67, were gunned down. The two turban-wearing Sikhs were taking an evening stroll on March 4, 2011, when they were shot.

Surinder Singh died at the scene, but Gurmej Singh stayed in critical condition until he also died on April 15.

“I am confident that there is a person out there and we will reach them,” Papineau said.

To further prompt a witness, the police department has submitted a letter to Governor Jerry Brown requesting that he add $50,000 to the reward from the Governor’s Reward Program in which law enforcement agencies may request additional funds.

“When you start to throw out large numbers of money like that, people start to remember things,” said Christopher Trim, spokesman for the police department.

The governor’s reward would supplement the $57,000 raised by community efforts and Local Crime Alerts, a non-profit organization that uses anonymous tips from the community to aid law enforcement agencies.

“The latest update is that they (the Governor’s office) had received our letter but the application was pending,” Trim said.

“We know that somebody somewhere knows who did this,” said Amar Shergill, lawyer for the victims’ families. “If we increase the reward it is far more likely that someone will have the courage to come forth and do the right thing.”

It has been difficult for detectives to declare what the perpetrator’s intentions may have been given the lack of concrete evidence.

“We have still yet to determine a motive for this,” Papineau said. “Whether it’s a hate motivation or some other motivation.

“I feel pretty frustrated,” he added. “It’s frustrating that it happened at such a busy time of day. And coming up on a year and no one having come forward adds to the frustration.”

Gurmej Singh’s son, Kamaljit Singh, shares a similar frustration. But he said he recognized that the police department and the Shergill law firm are trying their best.

“It is obvious that something is better than nothing,” he said, in response to release of the vehicle description. “But something should have happened by now.”

In January the police department asked America’s Most Wanted, a television program aimed to help law enforcement by profiling suspect victims, to nationally broadcast an episode about the crime. The submission is still pending.

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