A man who was shot Tuesday after crashing his SUV in suburban Vancouver was the target of a gang-related shooting that forced a lockdown at two schools, police said.

Langley RCMP cordoned off a tree that Leonard Pelletier struck while escaping several armed attackers.
(CBC)

Leonard Allan Pelletier, 40, was dropping off his son, 14, at D.W. Poppy High School in a quiet area in Langley when the father thought he was being followed and tried to drive away from the school with his son still inside, Langley police said.

Pelletier — who is a member of the Hells Angels, according to CBC sources — lost control of the black Hummer he was driving and ran into a tree — and that's when the shooting began, Cpl. Peter Thiessen said.

"Two or three suspects exited their vehicle and began shooting at the victim's vehicle, striking it numerous times with a high-calibre weapon," Langley RCMP Cpl. Peter Thiessen told reporters at the scene.

"The 14-year-old was not struck. However, the driver was. He's in a local-area hospital," he said.

Police said the father and son are well-known to police, and the incident was likely gang-related.

"This is clearly a targeted incident," Thiessen said. "These individuals are known to our office, both the father and the son, based on their activity in the community."

Police said the shooting happened at about 8:15 a.m. PT and forced a lockdown at two nearby schools for about two hours, including the high school the teen attends. The nearby Peterson Road Elementary School was also locked down.

Students at Langley's D.W. Poppy High School were locked down for about two hours early Tuesday morning.
(CBC)

"We initially felt that there may have been an escalation at the incident, that's why we enacted protocols to lock down the high school and an elementary school that are in the area," Thiessen said.

Police said their investigation is focused on a major youth gang in Langley, called the 865 Gang.

Police said Pelletier's other son, 16, was intercepted near the scene. They would not give details of the arrest but said he had to be tasered and restrained.

Concerned parents headed to the schools after the shooting locked down the schools.

"I have three kids going to this school … [police] just said the people that did the shooting are still at large," said one parent whose three children attend one of the two schools.

The incident was the latest of a series of shootings that have swept across Vancouver's Lower Mainland in the last two weeks, police said.