Victims shot outside Ottawa wedding not intended targets: police

Ottawa police say a deadly weekend shooting outside a wedding venue was a targeted attack but they don’t believe any of the victims were the intended targets.

Two men were killed and six others injured Saturday night when at least 50 shots were fired outside the Infinity Convention Centre in the city’s south end.

The dead were identified as Said Mohamed Ali, 26 and Abdishakur Abdi-Dahir, 29, who had both travelled to Ottawa from Toronto for the wedding.

Ottawa Police Deputy Chief Patricia Ferguson says Ali had moved to Canada just four months ago.

Police say two of the six injured people had travelled to Ottawa from Ohio.

They say they believe this was a targeted event linked to gang activity, rather than a mass shooting intended to kill as many people as possible by firing into a crowd.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 6, 2023.