Police are calling the killing of a 23-year-old Vancouver man on a playground in Kamloops, B.C., a gang hit.

Archie LePretre and his cousin were playing basketball at Stuart Wood Elementary Tuesday afternoon when they were confronted by three men armed with knives and a baseball bat, police said.

LePretre was killed and his cousin was injured.

Firefighters and paramedics performed CPR on the man but he died on arrival at Royal Inland Hospital. Learned won't say if this was a stabbing, but did say the man was wounded in his upper body.

"The individual had suffered some injury, some trauma to the upper body, but again what that was, we won't be able to know until they do the full forensic examination," he said.

The RCMP said both men belonged to a known street gang.

They say the three suspects, described as First Nations men in their twenties, are believed to be members of a rival gang.