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Monday, May 31, 2021

Five days, four homicides: What we know about Ottawa's recent wave of gun violence - Ottawa Citizen

Chief Peter Sloly said there was so far no known connection between the shootings over the past week.

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Four young men are dead and the Ottawa police chief says the service is finalizing a major operational plan to respond to a wave of gun violence that includes four homicides in five days over the past week.

In the homicide unit, Staff Sgt. Jeff Pilon said Monday it’s “all hands on deck,” and everybody’s been working non-stop.

At a Monday news conference, Chief Peter Sloly said there was so far no known connection between the shootings over the past week, and at that point the police service couldn’t draw a link between the homicides and gangs.

Sloly pledged more announcements and arrests to come, as well as an operational plan with multiple elements, including suppression of violence.

Ottawa police data shows that there have been 35 shooting events (any incident where a firearm is discharged illegally) so far this year, six of which were firearm homicides. This comes after five-year lows for shootings (45) and firearm homicides (three) in 2020.

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In 2017, 2018 and 2019, between 74 and 77 shootings, and five and eight firearm homicides were reported annually.

Sloly explained that when it comes to shootings, “there is a small percentage of people who operate in a relatively small percentage of the geography of Ottawa that produce disproportionately the largest amount of our violent crime.”

Ottawa Police Service Chief Peter Sloly
Ottawa Police Service Chief Peter Sloly Photo by Errol McGihon /Postmedia

Recently, Sloly said the police service has seen “a significant spread” in the areas impacted by shooting events. People are using vehicles to move drugs and guns, and they’re encountering one another “in unplanned and rather random locations, and then sparking acts of violence, often involving firearms.”

It’s a relatively new trend the police service has seen in Ottawa over the last several years, according to the chief, and makes traditional policing methods more difficult.

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Nonetheless, he said the service will be identifying the highest-risk offenders — often the same people at highest risk of becoming victims — as well as places where those offenders are engaging in crime or activities that lead up to it.

Members of the Ottawa Police Service homicide unit, guns and gangs unit, drug unit, neighbourhood resource teams and others will be targeting those considered most likely to commit crimes, said Sloly. This suppression is already happening, and will continue “until we see a flattening of the spike in crime that we’ve seen impacting the city.”

Under development currently is “a greater level of integrated investigation operations,” said Sloly, between OPS units like the drug squad and guns and gangs unit, as well as with other policing bodies in the area, and at the national and international level.

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There will also be a community engagement strategy built at the neighbourhood and city level, said Sloly, with outreach to community stakeholders — “some of whom have already reached out to us” — to engage them in that process.

Read on for a timeline of the shooting incidents reported by police in the last week.

Wednesday, May 26, 8:40 p.m: 

Emergency responders are called to the visitors’ parking lot of a condominium complex on Palmerston Drive in Gloucester. Ottawan Abdulqadir Yusuf, 22, is found dead in a silver sedan. Police say they believed Yusuf suffered a gunshot wound.

Pilon said Monday they had no call for gunshots, and it’s not known at this point when Yusuf was shot.

According to witnesses at the scene, the car had been parked in the same spot for several days. No suspect has been identified.

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The Ottawa Police Service Homicide Unit investigates the death of a man found dead in a vehicle in the 1400 block of Palmerston Drive on Wednesday night, May 26, 2021.
The Ottawa Police Service Homicide Unit investigates the death of a man found dead in a vehicle in the 1400 block of Palmerston Drive on Wednesday night, May 26, 2021. Photo by Jean Levac /Postmedia

Friday, May 28, 6:40 p.m.

Police are called after multiple gunshots, and upon arriving at a small strip mall at Alta Vista Drive and Dale Avenue, find brothers Abdulaziz Abdullah, 34, and Mohamad Abdullah, 27, both from Ottawa, fatally shot. A third man was also shot, and is discovered at the scene with non-life-threatening injuries.

Canada-wide warrants have been issued for three men, wanted for first-degree and attempted murder in relation to the shootings: Ahmed Siyad, 28, of Toronto, who is also known as Baby Dice, Dice or Dicey; Mohamed Shire, 31, of Toronto, also known as Waldo; and Abdullahi Osman, 29, of Ottawa, also known as Avon. Anyone with knowledge of their whereabouts is asked to call police.

From left: Mohamed Shire (Waldo), Abdullahi Osman (Avon), and Ahmed Siyad (Baby Dice, Dice or Dicey)
From left: Mohamed Shire (Waldo), Abdullahi Osman (Avon), and Ahmed Siyad (Baby Dice, Dice or Dicey) Photo by Ottawa police /Ottawa police

Sunday, May 30, 12:50 a.m.

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After reports of gunshots, police and first responders are called to an east Ottawa strip mall at the intersection of Meadowbrook and Cyrville roads. Ottawa resident Warsama Youssouf, 27, was found in the parking lot, with gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead in hospital.

Several residents of a community housing complex across the street from the mall said they heard the gunfire and watched as police tried to revive the man before he was placed into an ambulance.

No suspect has been identified. This was Ottawa’s seventh homicide of 2021.

Neighbours left a memorial of plastic flowers and a stuffed bunny in the parking lot of a strip mall in the east end of Ottawa where 27-year-old Warsama Youssouf was gunned down in the early hours of Sunday, May 30, 2021.
Neighbours left a memorial of plastic flowers and a stuffed bunny in the parking lot of a strip mall in the east end of Ottawa where 27-year-old Warsama Youssouf was gunned down in the early hours of Sunday, May 30, 2021. Photo by Jacquie Miller /Postmedia

Sunday, May 30, 7:20 p.m.

A shooting takes place on Woodroffe Avenue, and police advise the public to expect road closures of Woodroffe between Baseline Road and Highway 417.

Sloly said Monday that the shooting involved one victim, who was recovering in hospital, and that the guns and gangs unit was investigating.

Anyone with information about the homicides was asked to call the police service at 613-236-1222, ext. 5493.

Ottawa police were on the scene of a shooting that took place Sunday evening.
Ottawa police were on the scene of a shooting that took place Sunday evening. Photo by Ashley Fraser /Postmedia

— With files from Postmedia

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Five days, four homicides: What we know about Ottawa's recent wave of gun violence - Ottawa Citizen
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