A 26-year-old man has died after being shot by police in a motel parking lot in Montreal’s Saint-Laurent district on August 4. Peter McCabe/The Canadian Press
Two days of fear and bloodshed in Montreal ended with an early morning police shootout Thursday, after officers burst into a suburban motel room and killed the man suspected of killing to randomly shoot three people.
Abdulla Shaikh, 26, who police believe was responsible for the shooting deaths in Montreal and Laval on Tuesday and Wednesday, was pronounced dead at the scene after a police raid at the Pierre Motel in district of Saint-Laurent, around 7 in the morning.
The man was carrying a firearm when police entered his room with a warrant, and was hit with at least one projectile, according to Guy Lapointe, a spokesman for the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes (BEI), which investigates related injuries and deaths. with the police shootings in Quebec.
Among the victims were a hospital worker, a young skater and the father of a well-known boxer.
It appears that Mr. Shaikh had no connection to his alleged victims and that he chose them at random, said Sergeant Audrey-Anne Bilodeau, a spokeswoman for the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), which has taken over the other three Montreal death investigations. police. He is believed to have acted alone, with no connection to organized crime and has a history of being the subject of police interventions related to mental health episodes, it added.
Quebec to announce crime prevention funding as Montreal police investigate shooting
Provincial police declined to say what type of firearm Mr. Shaikh or how he got it, citing his research.
At the time of the shooting, Mr. Shaikh was facing pending charges of assault, sexual assault and criminal harassment dating back to 2016.
In 2015 he was charged with causing public disturbance, criminal harassment and disorderly conduct. Those charges appear to have been dropped following a COVID-19 postponement. Overlapping breach charges were also dropped.
In 2018, he was accused of malfeasance. After a mental examination, he was found not criminally responsible.
This week’s killings began in a bus shelter on Tuesday night when Mr Shaikh allegedly shot André Fernand Lemieux, 64, the father of professional boxer David Lemieux.
“It’s an incomprehensible and gratuitous act that has been committed and it’s now up to the police to do their investigation to try and understand it,” said Andréanne Lambert, communications coordinator for Eye of the Tiger management (which represents David Lemieux). , he said in an email.
Just over an hour later, in a nearby neighborhood, police believe Mr. Shaikh shot and killed Mohamed Salah Belhaj, 48, an interventionist at a local mental health hospital.
A third man was killed in the neighboring city of Laval, apparently at random, around 9:30 p.m. this Wednesday. Witnesses said the 22-year-old victim, Alexis Levis-Crevier, was riding a skateboard at the time of the shooting.
Laval resident Saed Reyad was sitting outside his home with his son when he heard gunshots, but didn’t realize how far away they were until he saw sparks in the air. His wife later said she saw the shooter reach out to aim his gun. Mr. Reyad also saw the man shoot into the air and then heard the screeching of tires.
The body remained in the street for hours, surrounded by a pool of blood. The fact that the killer targeted people at random made Mr. Reyad’s approach to violence all the more disturbing.
“I was in shock – my heart was pounding,” he said. “It could have been us.”
At the Pierre Motel on Thursday, flanked by a shopping mall and a mosque along a major boulevard in a Montreal suburb, police taped off the site of the EIB investigation. Mr. Lapointe, the spokesman, said he did not know whether Mr. Shaikh opened fire before being shot during the raid, but said the suspect was carrying a firearm when officers entered the room.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante congratulated police in a statement on Twitter Thursday, writing that “the last 48 hours have been trying for everyone.”
“Once again, our police show their effectiveness and dedication to the safety of Montrealers,” he said.
Also Thursday, the federal government announced $41.8 million in funding to the Quebec government to prevent gun and gang violence. In a press release, the mayor called it “a strong signal of the commitment of both levels of government to support our metropolis’s efforts to prevent gun violence.”
“We hope that the funds allocated to Montreal will allow us to strengthen our capacity, the capacity of the SPVM [Montreal police]and the ability of community organizations to support young people by providing them with stimulating and safe environments that move them away from violence,” he added.
The spate of shootings by an apparently mentally ill man with a long criminal record points to the failure of governments to adequately support people with mental illness, said Ted Rutland, associate professor of geography, planning and the environment at the Concordia University.
“If you look at the circumstances of that person’s life and the multiple opportunities to support that person to live a better life and not hurt other people, it’s a failure,” he said. “We overfund the police and massively underfund all the other things we need to keep us safe.”
With a report from The Canadian Press
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