Police investigate city's 4th homicide of 2021

Abdulqadir Yusuf was unresponsive inside a Hyundai Sonata in a Palmerston Drive parking lot when the 911 calls started pouring in.

Ottawa police and paramedics arrived just before 9 p.m. Wednesday to find a homicide scene. Yusuf, 22, was dead from a gunshot to the head.

Residents on Palmerston Drive told CBC News on Thursday that they didn't recognize the vehicle, a silver sedan that had been parked in residential parking lot E of 1462 Palmerston Dr., nor the name of the victim. None of those residents recalls even hearing a gunshot, which police believe could have occurred during the tail end of a holiday long weekend full of fireworks.

Homicide detectives are still trying to determine when exactly Yusuf was killed.

Victim acquitted in 2019 shooting

Earlier this year, Yusuf himself was acquitted of a shooting in Overbook in September 2019.

At the time of his arrest, Yusuf had been under police surveillance as the suspected gunman in the shooting. The gun was discarded and found several blocks from the scene, where police alleged he shot several rounds at a vehicle. There were no injuries.

Yusuf was arrested by the Ottawa police guns and gangs unit and charged with several firearms offences and breaching conditions imposed on him by the court. He was found not guilty of those charges in March.

Police feared retaliation for 2016 killing

Yusuf's older brother, Mohamud Yusuf, is currently serving a 14-year prison sentence for manslaughter for his role in the 2016 gangland slaying of drug dealer Mohamed Najdi.

That homicide case ended in drama when the alleged shooter and an alleged co-conspirator were acquitted by a jury in November 2018. At the time, police feared the fallout from the acquittals and expected retaliation from both the families of the victim and the accused.

Homicide detectives have not yet established a motive for Yusuf's killing, nor have they identified any suspects.

Yusuf's is the city's fourth homicide of 2021.

Investigators ask that anyone with information about the killing call the Ottawa police homicide unit at 613-236-1222 ext. 5493.