A joint effort between the Vancouver Police Department and Surrey RCMP has led to the arrest of a Vancouver man in relation to the city’s first homicide of 2017.
Thirty-one-year-old Stephen Farmer was arrested on an outstanding warrant for second-degree murder in relation to the January shooting death of Billy Bustinski.
A week earlier, on July 13, 29-year-old Marnie Marie Scow turned herself in after she was charged with manslaughter, also in connection with the death.
The arrest was made after the Vancouver Police Emergency Response Team, with the assistance of the Surrey RCMP, executed a search warrant at a home in Surrey on July 21.
Farmer was the subject of a June 1 appeal by the RCMP, which wanted him for three outstanding warrants including three charges of driving while prohibited, flight from police, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, failure to stop at an accident and breach of probation. The Vancouver police called him “a violent offender.”
At 10:30 p.m. on January 28, 2017, police were called to the Savoy Hotel on East Hastings Street.
Bear spray was also released inside the four-storey hotel, making it difficult for police to breathe in the building. Photos taken at the scene outside the building through an upper-storey window showed officers on an upper floor wearing gas masks.
“The officers fought through the effects of the bear spray and discovered a man inside the hotel suffering from a gunshot wound,” the Vancouver Police Department said.
Officers carried Bustinski outside and performed CPR until paramedics took over, but he died of his wounds shortly after. It was Vancouver's first homicide of the year.
