SHAAMINI YOGARETNAM, OTTAWA CITIZEN
Tuesday July 25, 2017
The slain men in Monday’s string of west-end shootings were neighbours and friends whose families had known each other for years.
Abdulrahman Al-Shammari, 26, and Dirie Olol, 27, lived just four houses away from each other.
Police began investigating their slayings and the attempted homicide of Abdulrahman’s brother, Talal Al-Shammari, 31, early Monday morning when Talal showed up shot in the neck, shoulder and pinky finger at the Queensway Carleton Hospital. From there, police later found Abdulrahman lying on a Tavistock Road driveway with a gunshot wound to the chest. Hours later, Abdulrahman’s idling Mazda 3 was found on Wayne Avenue East with Dirie Olol dead inside from a bullet to the forehead.
The Al-Shammari family is now reeling after two sons were violently attacked.
“He was a good man, a kind person,” brother Mashari Al-Shammari said of Abdulrahman.
Crying into his hands, Mashari was in disbelief as his family was preparing to start making arrangements for his brother’s burial. He was at the end of a long work day when he noticed several missed calls on his phone and called his family to see what was wrong.
“I love him so much.”
Abdulrahman was the youngest son of a family of five brothers and two sisters.
Talal remains sedated in hospital. The bullet that went through his neck managed to miss a major artery. He can’t speak but is thought to be in good condition. He doesn’t know that his brother is dead.
Adulrahman is survived by one young son.
“What are we going to tell him? He doesn’t even understand,” brother Jarrah Al-Shammari told the Citizen.
Jarrah said he has no idea what could’ve led to the attacks on Talal, Abdulrahman and Dirie.
“They’re grieving just like us,” he said, motioning to the Olol family home just steps away.
A handwritten sign on the front door of the Olol home said the family would be at the mosque for afternoon prayers.
The killings are the city’s seventh and eighth homicides of the year.
The Ottawa police homicide squad is seeking the public’s assistance and is looking for witnesses. If you were travelling in the area of Elmhurst Park or the area of Sir John A. MacDonald Parkway between Island Park Drive and Richmond Road between the hours of 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. and observed anything suspicious, please contact the major crime unit at 613-236-1222 Ext. 5493.
More to come.
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