One man is dead after a shooting in the northeast Calgary community of Taradale.

Officers were called at about midnight to investigate a traffic accident and reports of shots fired in the 200 block of Taracove Road N.E., police said.

When officers arrived, they found a black SUV sitting atop two silver cars. Inside one of the cars officers found a man dead from what appeared to be gunshot wounds, police said.

The shooting appears to have been targeted, said Det. Shawn Rupchan.

Nearby resident Govardhanan Nagappan told CBC News that it was his SUV that somehow got wedged between the cars during the incident.

Nagappan said he was watching a movie in his living room around midnight when he heard loud crashes. He came outside and called 911 when he saw the shooting victim.

He said he saw two men run from the scene, get in a vehicle and drive away.

"He was bleeding in the back of the head," he said of the victim.

As Nagappan tried to help the dying man in the car, as instructed by the 911 dispatcher, he was approached by two men who appeared to know the victim, he said.

"They seemed ... stressed out, because the guy who was hurt might be their friend or relative," he said.

Nagappan said those men then left the scene, too.

The homicide unit spent Wednesday morning at the scene investigating. There were blankets draped over the windshield of one of the sedans.

Across the street from the SUV and two cars, tarps covered the front windows of a fourth vehicle.

An autopsy was set for Wednesday, police said. No other details about the investigation were revealed.