Homicide unit investigating fatal shooting in Herongate mall parking lot
The victim of Thursday night's fatal shooting has been identified as Ahmed Salim-Al-Badri, 34, of Ottawa. Friends told CBC he's survived by his three-year-old son. (Submitted by Manal Obeed)
The Ottawa Police Service is investigating a homicide that happened near a popular shopping area on Thursday night.
Police responded to reports of a shooting in the parking lot of the Herongate Square shopping centre near the intersection of Heron and Walkley roads just after 7:30 p.m.
Officers found a man with critical injuries inside a vehicle. They performed CPR and paramedics took him to the hospital, where he died of his injuries, police said.
Police have identified the victim as Ahmed Salim-Al-Badri, 34, of Ottawa.
Photos taken at the scene Thursday evening showed a small white sedan parked with its driver-side door open and debris on the pavement.
Police tape blocked off a section of the Herongate Square parking lot on Thursday night. (Emma Weller/CBC)
'He used to protect us'
Ahmed Mouyed and his mother Manal Obeed knew Salim-Al-Badri, originally from Iraq, for 20 years.
Mouyed and Salim-Al-Badri met in Syria and moved to Canada at the same time in 2010, Mouyed said.
"He used to protect us from bad people," Mouyed said.
On Friday afternoon, Mouyed and Obeed pulled up to the scene of the previous night's shooting in the Herongate Square parking lot.
Obeed crouched down to inspect a section of pavement where there appeared to be dried blood and clutched her chest. She later told CBC she wanted to see the place where Salim-Al-Badri was gunned down.
Mouyed described Salim-Al-Badri as an honest person and a father who is survived by his three-year-old son. Mouyed said when he woke of Friday morning, his friend's death still didn't seem real.
Manal Obeed, left, and her son Ahmed Mouyed visited the shooting scene Friday. (Guy Quenneville/CBC)
'There is an escalation,' chief says
Ottawa police are asking anyone with information, including video footage, to contact the homicide unit.
It's been a violent week in the city, with a 17-year-old boy shot and killed in Centretown after a concert on Sunday and another man, so far unidentified, stabbed near Algoquin College and taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries early Sunday morning.
"There is an escalation," Ottawa Police Chief Eric Stubbs said in an interview with Radio-Canada on Friday, though he stressed there are no apparent links between the violent incidents.
"You go through different cycles where it peaks, there's some conflicts and then it calms down and then it cycles up and down. And right now we're on a bit of an uptick."
Obeed and Mouyed were visibly shaken as they visited the parking lot Friday. (Guy Quenneville/CBC)
Whether it happens in the early morning or the middle of the afternoon, such violence is understandably concerning to residents, Stubbs added.
The shopping centre where Salim-Al-Badri was shot includes a 24/7 gym where people told CBC the parking lot is a common hangout for people in their vehicles.
"It doesn't feel safe anymore," Mouyed said after the week of violence. "It's not like back in the day when we moved to Canada."
