A convicted killer with ties to a violent Calgary gang is back in police custody, one day after being freed on statutory release.

Drew Gregory Martineau, 24, was released from prison this week after serving two-thirds of a three-year sentence for manslaughter.

Police said on Wednesday night, they responded to reports of a suspicious vehicle in an alley of the 1000 block of Motherwell Road N.E. and found Martineau with two other men.

Martineau was found to be breaching a condition of his parole that prohibited him from being in the company of known criminals or gang members, said the Calgary Police Service on Thursday.

The police contacted the National Parole Board who revoked Martineau's statutory release.

"This was a perfect example of someone from the community who saw something suspicious and called police. Due to that phone call and their actions, we've been able to put a gang member ... back behind bars," said Staff Sgt. Gord Eiriksson of the police gang unit.

Martineau was one of two men convicted of fatally stabbing Ricky Barkhouse in a fight outside a downtown club in 2006.

The other attacker, Simon Yuen, was freed from prison in May 2008.

In 2005, Martineau was jailed for weapons-related offences after police found loaded guns in a vehicle during a traffic stop. Martineau was in the vehicle with Roger Chin, a gang member who was killed in a targeted drive-by shooting in July 2008.

"He's definitely associated with one of the two groups wreaking havoc on our streets. [He's] convicted of killing another person and he's back in jail. End of the day, bottom line we've got a killer back in jail. That's a good thing," said Eiriksson.

A violent rivalry between two gangs that once belonged to the same group has seen deadly, daytime shootings escalate in Calgary over the last year.