'Killing machine on our streets': Fully automatic guns used in 2020 shootings, Edmonton police say

Gun violence in Edmonton David Ewasuk looks at rising gun violence in Edmonton this year.

EDMONTON — Late last month, residents at a north Edmonton homicide scene heard a barrage of bullets, all of them fired in little more than a single second.

CTV News has learned that investigators think that quick burst saw more than a dozen rounds fired from a single weapon.

A fully automatic firearm.

It was in a townhouse parking lot at 121 Street near 146 Avenue. Abdirahman Hashi, 25, was killed inside his vehicle while his 22-year-old male passenger escaped with non-life threatening injuries.

In what may be Edmonton’s first-ever recorded killing involving a submachine gun, and in a year of escalating gun violence, police are now confirming automatic firearms are being used this year.

More than once.

“We have seen those out there," Edmonton Police Service Drug and Gang Enforcement Section Staff Sgt. Pierre Blais told CTV News. "There have been recent shootings where we believe fully automatic weapons have been used in shootings that we are currently working on right now. And so, yeah, we do have them out there right now."

CTV News has not been able to find any record of submachine guns suspected in any prior murder investigations.

FIRST AUTOMATIC WEAPON HOMICIDE IN EDMONTON?

Blais is not giving details about that shooting or any other, but he did share his concerns about these weapons now being used.

“When you pull the trigger on those automatic firearms, the control really isn’t there and that’s when there’s a propensity for a spray of stray bullets,” Blais said.

In 2017, Blais was seconded to ALERT, the multi-law enforcement agency that investigates serious crime throughout the province. He showed off two homemade submachine guns that were built in a metal fabrication shop near the city. At the time, Blais was concerned that four more of the automatic weapon copies of a submachine gun, called a MAC-11, might still be on the streets.

Multiple websites state a MAC-11 is capable of firing up to 1,200 bullets in one minute.

But it is not clear as to whether police believe any of those illegal firearms are suspected in any of their automatic weapon shootings this year.

CTV News played a recording of the suspected submachine gun from the November homicide scene for University of Alberta Criminology Professor Temitope Oriola.

“That sound, that is a killing machine on our streets,” Oriola responded.

Oriola says people associate these sounds with war zones and organized crime activity, but confirmation they are now being used on our streets is troubling.

“Their killing capacity, their kill ratio is incredible. These are not the kinds of weapons we want in the hands of civilians,” Oriola stated.

Like Blais, he has concerns about stray bullets and the potential for harm to bystanders. But as to whether the EPS should be informing the public about these guns being used in our city this year?

“It’s a very fine line that you have to walk between providing information and not scaring people unnecessarily. But I would imagine that this is a matter that has to be addressed by the police,” the criminologist said.

We also played the sound to a local gun expert. Phil Harnois is a former Edmonton police officer and the current owner of P & D Enterprises, the city’s largest independent gun shop.

“I can’t even believe that, I can’t even believe that situation,” Harnois said after hearing the one-second burst of sound, adding he’d be “blown away” if that was what he was hearing.

“They’ve got some convincing me, I’m not going to deny that. First of all, there’d be shell casings everywhere."

But when told that the gang unit is investigating more than one suspected shooting involving automatic weapons, he said police need to get them off the streets now.

“If there is more than one incident, then have at her and let's bring those boys to justice.”

While Blais would not comment specifically on the north Edmonton homicide, he told CTV News that getting all illegal firearms off the streets remains the priority of the EPS.

“We do have quite a few files that we are currently investigating, that we do know who the suspects are and I am hopeful they will come to a successful conclusion here in the near future. It’ll probably start painting the picture a little clearer for the community and the media in relation to the concentrated effort that we are having,” the staff sergeant said.

This year has seen 152 gunfire incidents in Edmonton as of late Monday — half of them being called targeted shootings. It is the first year that statistics of this nature have been catalogued by the EPS, but it has not said how many Edmonton shootings are being investigated as gunfire from fully automatic weapons.