Police have identified the body found slumped over the wheel of this vehicle on the East 65th Avenue near Fraser Street as Hung Van Bui, 27.Police have identified the body found slumped over the wheel of this vehicle on the East 65th Avenue near Fraser Street as Hung Van Bui, 27. (CBC)

The man found dead behind the wheel of his car in East Vancouver Monday night survived a restaurant shooting last August that left two dead and six wounded, police say.

Vancouver police identified Monday's shooting victim as Hung Van Bui, 27, whose body was slumped inside his car on the sidewalk of the 600 block of East 65th Avenue.

"Mr. Bui, who last year was a survivor of the Fortune Happiness Restaurant shooting, was known to police and believed to be involved in the drug trade," police spokesman Const. Tim Fanning said Tuesday night.

Two masked men walked into the Fortune Happiness Restaurant at 654 East Broadway and opened fire at about 4:30 a.m. PT on Aug. 9 of last year.

The four men and four women who were shot were all sitting at the same table. Police said at the time that the two slain men, aged 19 and 26 and of Asian descent, were known to them.

Two men died and six people were wounded in an early morning shooting at an East Vancouver restaurant in August 2007.Two men died and six people were wounded in an early morning shooting at an East Vancouver restaurant in August 2007. (CBC)

CBC News has learned Bui was charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing death of UPS delivery driver Andrew Allen in Edmonton in June 1999. The charge was stayed.

Sid Tarrabain, who defended Bui, then 18, confirmed Tuesday night that Bui had moved to Vancouver but said the two had kept in touch over the years.

"I haven't seen him in years. I have heard from him from time to time," Tarrabain told CBC News in a telephone interview from his Edmonton home.

The murder charge against Bui was stayed because the Crown "had virtually no case against him," Tarrabain said Tuesday.

"There was no evidence really connecting him to the crime," Tarrabain said of the 1999 murder charge.

The lawyer described Bui as a "very nice young man" who came from a good family.

No arrests in restaurant shooting

Fanning would not disclose further details Thursday about the possibility of a connection between the Fortune Happiness restaurant shootings and Bui's death. There have been no arrests in the restaurant shootings.

At 10:20 p.m. PT on Monday, East 65th Avenue residents reported they had heard shots, Fanning said.

"Paramedics were on the scene shortly after police were. They could see nothing could be done, that the man had died as a result of what appeared to be gunshot wounds," Fanning said before police identified Bui as the shooting victim.

One witness told CBC News that he saw two men jump out of a vehicle and shoot the driver of the car as he was parking on the street, but police did not confirm that account.

Police said Tuesday morning that they have no descriptions of suspects and have not recovered any weapons.

Bui's killing is the city's 12th homicide of the year and police said they believe it was another targeted attack.

Metro Vancouver police forces say 17 of the 37 homicides in the area this year may have been targeted attacks, likely associated with organized crime and gangs.