SIU investigating altercation that left man critical
Posted Jul 25, 2016 05:48:00 AM.
Last Updated Jul 25, 2016 10:18:17 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA – The Special Investigations Unit is investigating an altercation between Ottawa Police and a man in Hintonburg over the weekend.
Police were called to the Bridgehead at Fairmont and Wellington around 10:30 a.m. Sunday morning to a report of a man causing a disturbance.
Police then chased the man, who’s been identified as Abdirahman Abdi, a few hundred metres down the street, stopping outside a building on Hilda Street.
Several witnesses described police hitting and kicking the man, who may have been suffering from mental health issues.
A video posted on YouTube shows police working on a man outside a brick building, while a witness says the man was “bashed in the head with a baton.”
*Due to graphic language, we have decided not to embed the video, but you can view it by clicking here.*
Abdirahman then went into cardiac arrest and was rushed to hospital.
The councillor for the ward, Jeff Leiper, wrote in a blog late Sunday night that he is ‘very disturbed’ by witness accounts of how police dealt with the man.
The SIU is asking anyone who may have witnessed the incident to contact them.
