Said Mohamed Ali, a 26-year-old man, was killed on the night of September 2, 2023, when gunfire erupted outside the Infinity Convention Centre in south Ottawa. Although the killing occurred in Ottawa, police identified Ali as a Toronto resident who had travelled to the city to attend a wedding celebration. He had arrived in Canada from Somalia only about four months earlier and was trying to establish a new life in the country.
Two separate weddings were taking place at the convention
centre in the 2900 block of Gibford Drive, near Hunt Club Road and Uplands Drive. At approximately 10:21 p.m., Ottawa's 911 centre began receiving multiple calls reporting gunfire and injured people outside the building. The first police officer reached the area only a few minutes later. Investigators described a chaotic scene as guests fled or sought shelter while emergency crews tried to reach the wounded and officers searched for whoever had opened fire.
Investigators later determined that approximately 50 rounds had been fired into a crowd. Eight people were struck or otherwise wounded during the attack. Ali and 29-year-old Abdishakur Abdi-Dahir, another Toronto resident who had come to Ottawa for the wedding, suffered fatal injuries and were pronounced dead despite efforts by emergency responders. Six other people survived their injuries. In the days after the shooting, police reported that five of those survivors had been released from hospital and one remained hospitalized in stable condition. Two of the injured guests had travelled to the wedding from Ohio.
As detectives reconstructed what happened, they concluded that the shooting was not a random attempt to kill as many wedding guests as possible. Police said it was a targeted attack directed toward individuals believed to be attending one of the weddings. However, investigators specifically said that Ali, Abdi-Dahir and the other people who were struck were not believed to have been the intended targets. Police described the victims as innocent bystanders caught in the attack and said the investigation pointed toward street-level or gang-related activity. Authorities also said they found no evidence that the shooting was motivated by hate.
The number of shooters was initially unclear. Witness accounts conflicted, and investigators were unable to immediately establish whether one person or multiple people had opened fire. No useful public suspect description was released. Ottawa homicide detectives worked alongside the police Guns and Gangs Unit, forensic investigators and other officers, while also contacting Toronto police as they followed connections outside Ottawa. Investigators collected and reviewed video footage, processed forensic evidence and appealed for surveillance, doorbell and dash-camera recordings that might have captured people or vehicles connected to the attack.
Despite those efforts, the case remained unsolved more than two years later. In December 2025, Ottawa police said investigators had followed available leads, reviewed video evidence, collected forensic evidence and interviewed witnesses who were willing to provide statements, but no arrests had been made. Police continued asking people who had been at the wedding, particularly anyone who had not yet spoken with detectives, to come forward.
By September 2026, three years after Ali's death, there still had been no arrests or criminal charges announced and police had not publicly identified any suspects. The Ottawa Police Service Homicide Unit said the investigation remained open and active. Detectives stated that they believed some people who attended the wedding, or others with knowledge of what happened that night, had information they had not fully shared with investigators. Police renewed their appeal for witnesses and anyone with information about the people responsible for the shooting to come forward.
As of the latest publicly available police update in September 2026, no suspect had been publicly named, no one had been arrested or charged, and consequently there had been no trial or conviction in connection with the killings of Said Mohamed Ali and Abdishakur Abdi-Dahir. The double homicide remains an active Ottawa Police Service investigation.
