Maqsood Ahmed's death prompts police warning on patterned behaviour

Calgary police are reminding small business owners to be cautious of their everyday patterns after a small business owner died in a targeted attack Wednesday night.

Maqsood Ahmed was attacked after he closed up his Calgary Produce Market in Castleridgeand left to deposit a bag of cash and receipts, just like he likely did every night. Police say many people don't even notice they have a pattern but thieves do.

"You don't realize how much of a routine you're in until you, in retrospect, look back," said Kevin Brookwell, spokesperson for the Calgary Police Service. "Any deviation will help because if anyone is targeting or planning, it's going to be difficult to plan anything if you mix it up all the time."

Brookwell says in addition to mixing up routines, it's also important for people to be aware of their surroundings and to trust their instincts.

Security experts say thieves can't see a potential reward as being too easy to get.

"I can go back in history to when 7-Elevens used to be getting robbed every night," said Tim Lynn, who has worked in security for more than 50 years. "Now, a 7-Elevenis hardly even touched because they've kept that reward for the bad guy down."

Both Brookwell and Lynn say one thing businesses can do to make themselves less of a target is take their cash to the bank at different times of the day or keep the amount of cash kept in the cash register to a minimum.

Investigation continues

Meanwhile, police are still investigating Ahmed's death.

Investigators are looking for two men in their 20s:

• Black male who is roughly five feet 10 inches tall with a lean, muscular build and long hair. He was wearing dark clothing and white shoes.
• Black male who is roughly six feet tall with a medium to heavy build and short hair. He was wearing a light-coloured hoodie under a dark, three-quarter length leather jacket, dark pants and white shoes.

Police are also looking for a vehicle they believe was used by the suspects. It is described as a dark-coloured, 1999 to 2003 two-door Toyota Solara.

Anyone with information is asked to call police at 403-266-1234, the homicide unit tipline at 403-428-8877 or Calgary Crime Stoppers.