A family caught in the middle of a shootout between a suspect and Montreal police is reeling after the father was struck by five gunshots while trying to protect his two children.
After arriving home from a camping trip Sunday night, the Abdallahs found themselves in a haze of bullets in the suburb of Dollard-des-Ormeaux.
“I’m not sleeping. I’m afraid to sleep,” said Sirin Elgundi, the mother of the family. “I want to wake up and all this is story.”
The family was unloading the car when they were suddenly approached by a gun-wielding man who demanded the keys.
Stunned, their 18-year-old son said there wasn’t any time to answer.
“He (the suspect) turned around, saw the cops come in and just started shooting at them,” Abdel Rahman Abdallah said.
The suspect is accused of being involved in an altercation at a nearby home.
Quebec’s independent police watchdog, known as the BEI, said a 911 call came in reporting gunshots when the suspect fled and headed toward a first car with a gun. The driver left the scene.
The Abdellahs’ car was the second, and final vehicle the suspect eyed. After he demanded they hand over their keys, the BEI said police arrived and gunfire was exchanged with the suspect.
Neighbours heard what happened next, with reports of dozens of gunshots fired in the shootout that ensued. Laura Izquierdo, a Dollard-des-Ormeaux resident, said she thought she heard fireworks but saw the blur of red and blue lights when she looked out her window.
“I did learn that it was a father and a son that got shot,” Izquierdo said in an interview. “We don’t know what happened but that scream really, really hurt me.”
Abdel Rahman Abdallah was hit by a single bullet and it was only when he was in hospital that he learned he could have been paralyzed.
“The doctors told me that you’re very lucky because the bullet went two centimetres from my spine,” Abdel said.
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Amid the haze of bullets, his father Houssam Abdellah was shot five times as he shielded the children. Elgundi was on the second floor of their family home when she heard their daughter crying for help.
“Jana was yelling, ‘Baba (Dad), baba, baba is dead,'” Elgundi said.
What followed was a painstaking wait as the father and son lay bleeding on the ground. Elgundi alleges it took nearly an hour for the ambulance to arrive.
After he was treated for his gunshot wound, Abdel Rahman Abdallah was released from hospital but continues to deal with serious pain.
The father who protected his family was in stable condition but was seriously injured. He was still undergoing multiple surgeries Wednesday night.
“We hope, we are praying for him, that it will be OK,” Elgundi said of her husband.
The gun-toting suspect was also seriously injured in the shootout.
Nackeal Hickey, 26, is facing more than a dozen charges, including multiple counts of attempted murder for shooting at police officers with an illegal weapon.
Family doesn’t know if they were shot by police or suspect
The couple fled Lebanon’s civil war in 1993 to find peace in Canada. Elgundi wonders how the father of her children will cope with the trauma from the violent night they were supposed to sleep soundly in their beds after a camping trip.
“(The suspect) destroyed all of us,” Elgundi said, adding the entire family will need support to get through this.
Days after the shootout, the victims still don’t know if they were shot by police or the suspect. The son said he was running from the gunfire when he was shot first, and then his sister said their dad jumped in front of him and “took the rest.”
“As I was running, I was looking toward the house,” Abdel Rahman Abdallah said. “We didn’t see who shot. We don’t know who it was.”
Montreal police referred Global News to Quebec’s independent police watchdog when reached for comment.
The police watchdog has assigned seven investigators to the case. The BEI investigates when a person or an officer dies or is seriously injured during a police intervention or while in custody.
The BEI would not provide further comment on the investigation aside from the preliminary details provided on its website.
Quebec provincial police also launched a parallel, independent investigation into the shootout.
— with files from Global News’ Felicia Parrillo