Bullets fired in the city's Mechanicsville neighbourhood Thursday night struck homes and parked vehicles, Ottawa police said.

Police received calls from residents reporting hearing gunshots around Burnside and Carruthers avenues just after 11:30 p.m. The area is a block from Laroche Park.

Officers found evidence that several shots had been fired in the area, police said.

Ottawa police are investigating the shooting in the area just west of the downtown core. 0:25

Corey Moynahan, a Mechanicsville resident for 17 years, said his wife heard the shots last night.

"What she described was two bursts of gunfire, and not that it was single shots — boom, boom, boom ... it sounded like an automatic weapon, fully automatic."

Corey Moynahan said his wife heard shots that sounded like an automatic weapon. (Judy Trinh/CBC News)

Moynahan said police told him it was a targeted shooting, but that didn't allay his concerns.

"It was a targeted shooting from what the police say, but it doesn't make me feel any safer."

Moynahan said there's been a spate of violence in the neighbourhood recently, including a suspected homicide, after years of relative peace.

"It's been progressively getting better. This neighbourhood was quite notorious at one point in time, and now it feels like we are reverting back to 17 years ago."

Other residents told CBC they saw a light-coloured late model four-door sedan fleeing the scene after the shooting.

Mark Patterson with Ottawa police said the public has to be aware these are not random shootings and that it's a very small number of people in the city who are responsible.

But it's a concern, Patterson added, that they're using firearms to resolve their problems.

"We recovered 18 casings, so that means at least, at minimum, 18 shots were fired in an area that there are family members around, members of the public around," he said.

No injuries were reported in Thursday's shooting and no one is in custody. The investigation continues.

This is Ottawa's ninth shooting of 2018.

Police are asking anyone with information to submit an anonymous tip by calling Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or by using the Ottawa police app.