Abbotsford police are trying to figure out why a 24-year-old man was shot in the arm on a rural road during an early-morning meeting with a group of other young men on the western fringes of the community.

A resident reported gunfire around 2:30 a.m. Tuesday on the 2500 block of Bradner Road and police showed up to find the man with a non-life-threatening wound and the others scattered.

The victim, an Abbotsford resident, was not known to have any gang ties or a criminal history, but "whenever you have what appears to be a group of men in their 20s gathering on a rural road, the composition of that group and their purpose becomes a concern for police," said police spokesman Const. Ian MacDonald. "There are a couple other individuals that were in and around [the meeting area when police arrived], where we're struggling is to get everyone to account for where they were and why they were around.

"The willingness to cooperate after the dust has settled [is] sometimes not so great."

Police suspect there were two to three vehicles, with multiple passengers, at the meeting, MacDonald said.

The victim is "in no way in medical distress," but MacDonald couldn't say whether he was still in hospital.