Brutality Canada

Suicide victim a drug dealer, police say

Suspect who shot himself Tuesday night once jumped off balcony as police closed in

Don Campbell
The Ottawa Citizen
Thursday 11 January 2001

Residents on the top floor of a west-end Ottawa high rise heard commotion and yelling in their narrow hallway before the sound of a single gunshot rang out early Tuesday evening.

Suspected drug dealer, 28-year-old Paddy Green, had shot himself to death after trying to evade police.

And yesterday, as investigators with the province's Special Investigations Unit probed details of the shooting, the seniors who make up a majority of residents in the tidy, nine-storey building on Fox Crescent next to Carling Avenue, tried to reassure themselves the building is safe.

The residents say they didn't know much about the man who lived in Apartment 403, and didn't know how long he might have lived there.

"I guess you never know with apartments anymore," said an elderly woman who had lived in the building for several years.

Ottawa police, however, knew who the man was. They had a similar run-in with the suspect several years ago when he tried to escape over a balcony while police were attempting to arrest him.

This time they suspected he was dealing in heroin and they had his apartment under surveillence. The latest trouble began shortly after 8 p.m when an Ottawa police tactical unit moved in to execute a drug-related arrest warrant at Mr. Green's apartment.

Officers swarmed through the front door into the main lobby and instantly arrested one man without incident.

The primary suspect, however, heard police and bolted up one of the stairwells towards the roof. Officers spread out through the stairwells at either end of the building and secured the twin elevators, then made their way to the top floor to begin a floor-by-floor search from the top down.

The first two officers to reach the ninth floor went for a door to the garbage chute next to the elevator shafts, where they suspected the man was hiding.

Four more officers arrived and one opened the door to the chute to find the man hiding in the tiny space.

The officer demanded the man identify himself, which he did. He was the man they wanted. But at that point, the man pulled a .22-calibre handgun from a pocket.He brought the handgun slightly toward the officers, then pointed it to the right side of his temple and pulled the trigger, critically wounding himself.

He was taken to the Civic site of the Ottawa Hospital and was declared dead 90 minutes later.

The provincial investigators, who handle all cases of death or serious injury involving civilians and police officers, arrived soon after midnight and spent most of the night piecing together evidence and the story of the arrest attempt.

They say they expect to have the investigation completed within two weeks. The man's family was making arrangements to return the body home for burial.

The other man arrested at the apartment was questioned and released unconditionally early yesterday. An autopsy conducted yesterday confirmed the obvious cause of death while investigators sent blood samples to Toronto for toxicology testing.

Five floors below, neighbours of the dead man unanimously declined comment, many expressing exasperation over the night's events. The building managers had a repairman install a new locking device on the lobby doors.

Reprinted under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law.

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This page created January 19, 2001