The Ottawa Police Service is investigating the shooting death of a 26-year-old man in Orléans on Tuesday evening.
It happened in the 600 block of Trigoria Cres. shortly after 8:30 p.m.
Police identified the victim as Husain Dahis, 26, of Ottawa, who was located with a gunshot wound and declared dead at the scene.
No arrests have been made at this time, police say.
“I just heard a bunch of bullets or, like, gun noises, and it felt like someone was actually like drilling into the walls of our house because it was loud,” said area resident Isabella Xiong.
“And then five seconds later I heard a man screaming for a while and that’s when I thought ‘oh something’s definitely wrong.'”
Police believe the shooting was targeted and say the victim was known to them.
“We don’t believe the general public is [in] danger from whoever the person is that perpetrated this crime because we do believe it to be a targeted incident,” said Acting Staff Sgt. Chris O’Brien. “But that said, it still is something that obviously raises community safety concerns when we have people in the early evening hours like that, engaging in gunfire like that in a crowded, residential neighborhood.”
“We are looking to speak with a number of witnesses who live in the area that may have observed things. We’re also reaching out to the public for anyone that may have dash camera footage, cellphone footage, home security footage,” O’Brien added.
There have been 15 homicides in Ottawa so far this year.
“That’s about what Ottawa gets for a whole 12 months so yes I think the city should be very concerned,” said Irvin Waller, criminologist and author. He said more emphasis needs to be on having programs and outreach workers in the community to try and intervene in conflicts between people or groups in an effort to curb the violence.
“The city got $50 million to try and respond to the situations in the market with policing. I don’t have any confidence that that 50 million will actually solve any of the problems in the market. But, okay, we’ve got the $50 million. We should be putting $50 million immediately into tackling the risk factors that lead to this, violence,” Waller said.
It marks the third reported shooting in three weeks and follows a string of similar shootings involving young people, including the death of a 28-year-old in the Hampton Park Plaza on July 5.
“This doesn’t usually happen in Orléans so it’s really heartbreaking,” Xiong added.
The Ottawa Police Service’s Homicide Unit is investigating.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Ottawa Police at 613-236-1222 ext. 5493.
Anonymous tips can be submitted by calling Crime Stoppers toll-free at 1-800-222-8477 or crimestoppers.ca.
With files from CTV’s Katie Griffin