Before he was shot by police, the young schizophrenic who killed three men who were randomly attacked in the Montreal area in August 2022 was probably waiting in his motel room for the authorities to arrive.
The suspect, Abdulla Shaikh, lay down in his motel room on August 4, 2022, with his gun close to him. He made sure to set up a barricade with a table and chair outside the door and put on the security chain, police told The Public Inquiry into the Triple Murder.
Aerial view of the Pierre Motel in the Saint-Laurent district during police operations, August 4, 2022. Free photo
“I have broken down several doors in my career. But when we delivered the first blow with the ram, we hit a wall and told me it was barricaded,” explained Agent Mathieu Robillard of the Montreal police’s Tactical Intervention Group (GTI), recalling the events.
At that time, the 26-year-old was wanted by all police forces in the province because he shot three men on the street in Montreal and Laval.
The coroner’s investigation is underway to shed light on the murders of André Lemieux (64), Mohamed Belhaj (48) and Alex Levis-Crevier (22), as well as the death of the suspect. The three victims were attacked indiscriminately.
André-Fernand Lemieux, the father of boxer David Lemieux, was killed in Montreal on August 2 while waiting for a bus. The bullet penetrated the window of the bus stop on Boulevard Jules-Poitras. He was one of the victims chosen at random by the mad gunman Abdoula Shaikh. Archive photo, QMI Agency
“Police”
When they managed to break down the door of Room 139 after the battering ram was heard for the second time and they shouted “police,” the officers threw a diversionary device – such as a stun grenade – to destabilize Shaikh. Then he lay in his bed.
“But in a second he already had his gun in his hand and was shooting at us,” said agent Jean-Philippe Bergeron from the GTI.
Police responded immediately and opened fire on the suspect, who fell to the ground after being shot at least once.
They then sent a small robot and then a kinetic stick into the room to check the young man’s condition. He then had blood on his face and lay motionless.
“We want to check that he isn’t playing dead […] to win us over to him,” said Mr. Bergeron, specifying that the intervention took place in an urban environment, which increased the complexity.
“We cannot afford to have the suspect shot [partout] “, he explained on this topic.
A dangerous man
Abdulla Shaikh died on the spot, ending his killing spree.
The young man’s mental health issues will be the focus of the coroner’s public inquest. In 2017, he was specifically diagnosed with schizophrenia. He was also considered dangerous, which did not prevent his conditional discharge in March last year.
Yesterday it was learned that Shaikh visited a Toronto zoo and Canada’s Wonderland amusement park between his second murder in Montreal and his third in Laval.
Surveillance cameras captured Abdulla Shaikh arriving at a zoo in Toronto, Ontario, on August 3, 2022. Courtesy of the Coroner’s Office
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