Trigger warnings: Rash of south Ottawa shootings worries police, residents

A dispute between rival drug pushers led to arash of shootingsin south Ottawa this year far more than anywhere else in the city, CBC News has learned.

As of Friday afternoon, south-end neighourhoodsincluding Ledbury, Heatherington, South Keys, Greenboro, Heron Gate, Hunt Club and Findlay Creek hadseen 40shootings so far this yeara whopping 52per centof the 76shootings that occurred in the city.

There have beenfour shootingson Heatherington Roadalone, including one involving an injury, and six more nearby in which two people were injured.

Shotswere fired at and into homes on three of those occasions. Other times, police found only spent shell casings.

The spike inviolence has30-year-oldAbdiMohamed worriedabout letting his four young children playoutside their home in theHeatheringtonneighbourhood, where he said he's heard gunfire.

"It's very scary, knowing that a bullet can come in your house one day and hit your child,"Mohamed said.

(Story continues below map)

Interactive map of south Ottawa shootings

Important note about the map:Red points denote injuries and homicides, and yellow points denote damage to property or reports of shots heard. Ottawa police do not pinpoint exact locations; rather, they givethe nearest block of 100 addresses on the street where the shooting occurred. In those cases where precise addresses aren't known, the map markers are randomly generated.

Can't see the map? View it here.

Gangs a big problem in the '90s, '00s

This isn't the first time crime has been rife in this part of the city. Mohamed remembers what Heatherington was like when he was in school in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when a gang called the Ledbury Banff Crips was particularly active.

"It was pretty bad ... andwhen I got to Grade 9, my mother moved me out. We went to Blackburn Hamlet, thinking it'd be better," he said.

Three years ago,after things had quieted down, Mohamed moved back to Heatheringtonwith his childrento be closer to relatives. And while he's disturbed bythe returningviolence and the increasing tendencyof that violence to involve guns instead of knivesor fists he's happy there.

"It's a good place to raise your family because there's a lot of families here with kids. It's not as bad as certain people make it seem," hesaid, adding that there are more services and programs in place for residents thanin the past.

'The perception is not the reality'

Kelli Tonner, executive director of the South-East Ottawa Community Health Centre (SEOCHC), said people see crime spikes in neighbourhoods like this andoften jump to unhelpful conclusions about what life is like there, painting everyone with the same brush.

"The people who live there will tell you that the perception is not the reality," she said. "It's very stigmatizing, and it is difficult for people who live in those neighbourhoods to be able to rise above that perception."

And like Mohamed, she also knows the situation in south Ottawa today isdifferent than it was in 1998, when she was first hired bySEOCHC to work with the young people tied to the LedburyBanff Crips.

"I remember that time, and I remember it being very contained, very geography-based, and very focused in a particular cohort of kids and a particular neighbourhood, and I don't think that's what's happening nowadays," she said.

"There's this push to try and associate it with a particular geography, but the reality is, these are people travelling through our geography sometimes."

Summerdrug feud

Police confirmthe neighbourhood-based gangs of 20 years ago have now spread into wider, harder-to-tracknetworks of more loosely affiliated drug traffickers. Nor are the gangs as strictly hierarchical as they used to be.

But specific neighbourhoods can still be disproportionately affected, as this year's numbers in south Ottawa show.

In July, the increasinggunfireled policeto launch a 10-week investigation called the South SideProject.

"We knew that there [were]two rival drug-trafficking networks, criminal organizations, who were feuding at that time,"saidInsp. Mark Patterson, who oversees the guns and gangs unit in his role as head of covert operations. "There were certain areas within the south end that these guys were congregating at and conducting their business."

The project resulted in 15 arrests, $90,000 in seized cash, about 100drug charges and 27 firearms charges, he said.

But the shootingsin south Ottawa continue, including a brazen gang-related homicide in the middle of a busySouth Keys mall parking lot on Black Friday.

Ottawa's not alone: police services across Canadahave been dealing with more and more shootingsin recent years. Patterson said it's partly because more guns are being smuggled into Canada from the U.S., and partly because of a changingyouth culture.

"I'd be lying if I said it's not a cause for concern, when you see the increase in violent acts," he said.

"I think that how we're going to mitigate that is dealing with these kids at a younger ageintervention and prevention at a younger age."

Rash of shootings worries south end residents

6 years ago

Duration 0:51

A rash of shootings in south Ottawa this year has Heatherington resident Abdi Mohamed thinking back to the late 1990s and early 2000s, when a gang called the Ledbury Banff Crips was active.

Youth programs needed

The people workingon the front linesagree with him.

Forexample, the Hunt Club Community Centre runs a "highly successful" youth drop-in that attracts 100 to 150 kids every Friday night, demonstratingthe appetite for such services, Tonner said.

"That's one night a week. That's a very large community with a lot of kids, where if there was a Boys and Girls Club there, it would be full seven days a week," shesaid.

In Heatherington there'sa new Ottawa Senators rink, new basketball courts anda community kitchen program. There are plans for a communitymural andsubject to budget approval a complete street redesign of Heatherington Road, which Coun. Diane Deans hopescan be started in 2019.

• Read the city's Heatheringtonneighbourhood revitalization strategy.
• Read what Heatheringtonresidents told the city about changes they'd like to see.

But Deanssaid there's also a need for more preventionspecifically, getting more young people involved in healthy activitiesandgetting them jobs.

"I think that we need to, even if it costs a little more. We need to make sure that we have barrier-free access [for]young people, especially in vulnerable neighbourhoods, to city programs," she said.

On community policing

Deans also thinks police need to bring back community policing, and a recent survey of Ottawansfound many residents feel the same.

In 2017, all 800 front-line Ottawa police officers working across three departments patrol, neighbourhood and emergency support were brought under one umbrella;in part, policesaid, to deal with staffing issues and budget constraints, and also to respond to issuesmore nimbly.

The number of community officers the ones who run community policing centres and work with volunteers was reduced from 15 to 10, and approximately 40 neighbourhood officers, who aredeployed in the field to work on problems as a team,were folded into the front-line pool.

Deans has consistently complained about the shift away from community policing.

"One of the best parts about policing is community policing, wherethose police are in the neighbourhoods working with young people, taking away the stigma that sometimes is associated with police, especially in vulnerable communities, and knowing those communities," she said.

Police now say they want to createa community response unitafter a survey found most residents want to see more patrols in their neighbourhoods. The still-developing planis contingent on 30 more officers being hired next year, and would see 10 officers dispatched to deal with specific issues in neighbourhoods.

A community meeting with police Chief Charles Bordeleau, east district officers and Deans is set forDec. 6 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Greenboro Community Centre.