Debate over hip-hop nights reopens after nightclub shooting
Last Updated: Friday, May 8, 2009 | 2:14 PM ET
CBC News
One man was killed and another wounded after a shooting at a Byward Market nightclub early Thursday. (Jeff Semple/CBC)An area of Ottawa's Byward Market has reopened after a double shooting left one man dead and another wounded at a nightclub early Thursday.
As Byward Avenue reopened, however, so did the debate over gun violence in the city — specifically on hip-hop nights.
Police were called to Collection and Bar 56, two connected bars at 56 Byward Ave., at around 1 a.m. Thursday, where they found two men who had been shot.
Mohamed Jama Ali, 26, had been shot in the stomach and later died in hospital. A second man, a bouncer at the two bars, had been shot in the arm.
Wednesday is hip-hop night at Bar 56, which has some people wondering if there's a connection between the shooting and the type of night hosted by the nightclubs.
Marisol Simoes, who owns three bars in the market, said she finds most of the bars in Ottawa's downtown safe — except on hip-hop nights.
"I don't host those kinds of nights at my club anymore, and anybody that does, they're going to have to figure something out, probably metal detectors at this stage," she said.
Until two years ago, Simoes owned Bar 56, where Thursday's shooting took place.
Simoes said most of the hip-hop music fans who come out to clubs for those nights are good people, but it only takes a few poorly behaved customers to ruin a night.
"You get that two per cent who ruin it for everyone else," she said. "And most of the time, it's these gangs. They don't respect the word 'no.'"
Simoes said some bar owners know who the gang members are and have tried to ban them, but that they often still find a way in to the clubs.
One mother said she's now fully aware of what can happen in Ottawa's downtown at night.
She got a call to drive her daughter home shortly after midnight and arrived just in time to witness the Thursday morning shooting.
The CBC has agreed to protect her identity.
"He came in between my car. He had the gun in his hand," said the woman. "I got scared. I started my car. I put it in reverse to leave and that's when I decided, 'Oh my god, my daughter's there. Maybe something happened to her.'"
The woman said that's when she got out of her car and ran toward the bars where she found two men with gunshot wounds in the doorway of the bar.
One of those men, she said, suffered from asthma.
"He was having a hard time breathing. He said to the lady that he had lost his pumps," she said. "And when he rolled on the side, that's when all the blood started coming out more."
She said she's surprised Ali died in hospital.
"Why did he die? He was talking on the floor … he was talking," she said.
Gang activity up in Ottawa
On Friday, there were reports that Ali had been a member of a prominent Ottawa gang, the Ledbury Banff Crips.
Police wouldn't confirm the report, but said that the city has recently seen more gang-related activity.
"We are seeing more guns," said Staff Sgt. Chris Renwick, talking about the market shooting. "It's happening across the country and it's just a matter of time before we have another incident like that here in Ottawa."
Ottawa's gang scene, said Renwick, is still relatively new compared to that in other cities.
"The guns come with the criminal activity, which comes with the crack cocaine trade and business so yes, we are seeing more guns and it's around the cocaine trade," he said.
The south-end neighbourhood that was once known as the home of the Ledbury Banff Crips, however, is in the middle of an ambitious period of construction as Ottawa works to improve housing in the area.
More than a hundred community housing units sit at the corner of Ledbury and Banff streets, where the Ledbury Banff Crips gang got its name.
The gang members who lived there were pushed out a couple of years ago, but residents said the neighbourhood still needs to change.
Jeremy Matthews, a construction worker, said some gang members still come by the neighbourhood on the weekends.
"We see them every now and then, they'll show up in crews of 15 or 20 guys — big boys," he said.
Edward Ndopu, who has lived in the neighbourhood with his wife and six children for three years, said the area is still improving.
When he first moved in, he said, "There was a lot of mayhem. There was a lot of gallivanting. Then it became very clear — you know who they were and what they were up to, how they were surviving and living — intimidation, harassment, thievery, robbery, scare tactics."
Ndopu said that even though the city's neighbourhood improvements have helped, there are still signs of the Ledbury Banff Crips.
"Sometimes in the evenings or over weekends. They all hover to this area."
Even so, Ndopu said he hopes to move his family into one of the city's new units in that area in the next few months.
