Calgary police have charged three men with first degree murder in connection with a murder in Forest Lawn early Friday morning.

At just before 5:00 a.m. on Friday, police were called to a home in the 2400 block of 47 Street S.E. for reports of a shooting.

When officers arrived, they found the body of a man inside, whom family members identified as 23-year-old Abiem Kuol Akel Abiem.

CTV Calgary spoke to Abiem’s mother, Mary Malueth.

She says Abiem was her oldest child, he was a good kid, he worked in a restaurant and was always willing to help his friends.

The family came to Canada from South Sudan in 1997.

“We ran from the war,” she says.” We don’t want to start a war in Canada.”

Malueth is pleading for calm in the wake of her son’s death and has a message for others in the South Sudanese community.

“I hope Abiem’s death to be the last in the Sudanese community because we here in a better place. We are not here to kill each other,” says Malueth.

On the night of the shooting, witnesses reported seeing a group of men running from the scene shortly after the shooting took place.

A subsequent investigation led officers to a home in Taradale and, after a lengthy standoff; police arrested three men inside the home.

Matlop Nyok Okich, 21, Benjamin El-Ajak Nyiker, 23, and Akieg Bol, 20, have all been charged with first-degree murder in connection with Abiem’s death.

Inspector Don Coleman with the CPS Major Crimes Unit says Abiem knew his accused killers. "They're all known to each other, they're all a similar age, they are all associates one way or another of a larger group."

All of the young men involved are known to police, Coleman said.

He says that the investigation has been helped by a number of witnesses who have already spoken to police.

Coleman says that police are extra vigilant now for the chance of retaliation by Abiem's associates. "That is something that we are alive to and have plans to deal with that. We have plans to deal with that on a regular basis of our regular suppression, investigation and enforcement that goes on."

All three men have also been charged with kidnapping a second victim prior to the shooting on Friday. Coleman did not release much information about that incident other than saying the victim was female.