OTTAWA – It’s too soon to call it the year of the gun, but in the first seven months of 2012, the Ottawa police guns and gangs unit has investigated four more shootings than it did all of last year, including a brazen daylight shooting on Tuesday during a car chase.
Staff Sgt. Mark Patterson said the Blair Street incident was the 26th incident of shots fired so far in 2012, excluding the Khalid Doreh and Peyman Hatami homicides, which are being handled by the major crimes section. Later Wednesday, police were called to a 27th, at Fisher Avenue near Baseline Road where they found two shell casings and a vehicle with a bullet hole in it.
They investigated 23 shots-fired calls in all of 2011.
Patterson said the rise is partly due to more guns on the street and gang members becoming increasingly more aggressive.
More than half the shootings this year were gang-related.
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Most of the guns on Ottawa’s streets are handguns – half were stolen from registered owners, the other half smuggled into the city from the United States, Patterson said.
“Does that mean it’s going to be the year of the gun? I don’t know if that’s the case,” Patterson said.
“All I know is that we’ve got people right now that are carrying firearms that are more brazen in relation to where they’re shooting them off, and we have more victims being shot at.”
The recent spike in shootings is a cause for concern, Patterson said.
An innocent bystander could have been hit by a bullet in Tuesday afternoon’s shooting on Blair Street at Station Boulevard in the Riverview Park neighbourhood.
The Tuesday incident unfolded after an altercation between two groups of men. The shooting suspects apparently got into a car and chased after a second vehicle at high speed.
The passenger in one car fired two shots at the second vehicle, but police say no one was injured.
Police searched the area and found one of the cars abandoned nearby on Drake Avenue. The car was seized.
Patterson said his investigators spoke to the owner of the suspect vehicle and determined he was not involved in the shooting.
Police wouldn’t say Wednesday whether the vehicle owner is related to the suspects, but said the car was not stolen.
Patterson said several “persons of interest” in Tuesday’s shooting were identified with the help of descriptions given to police by witnesses.
In most cases, though, witnesses and victims don’t usually co-operate with police.
“We had a victim shot in the face not too long ago and he walked out of the hospital and didn’t give us a statement, saying he was going to take care of things in his own hands,” he said. “To us, that means there’s going to be retaliation.”
Anyone with information can call the Ottawa police guns and gangs unit at 613-236-1222 extension 5050.
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