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An anti-gang initiative that began as a response to last year’s record year of gun violence in the capital has ended as Ottawa police investigate the 20th shooting of 2015, the Citizen has learned.

When asked why the decision was made to end the initiative, which officers had lobbied to be extended or made permanent, Chief Charles Bordeleau told the Citizen that the assignment of additional officers to both the guns and gangs unit and the direct action response team was always intended to be temporary. The initiative ended at the beginning of July.

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“The goal was to increase suppression and enforcement activities in response to the increased violence we saw related to gang activity in our community,” Bordeleau said. “We have made significant progress in achieving that goal.”

Police bolstered the numbers of both sections and created a special strategy to combat gang violence after 49 shootings occurred in the City of Ottawa in 2014. The move came as city politicians and their affected communities sounded the alarm with their safety concerns and demanded to know what police and community agencies were doing to stop gang members from using their communities as a backdrop to carry out their business.