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Crime Prevention Ottawa, a community organization, has released a one-year progress report on its gang strategy as the city and police continue to grapple with brazen, mostly targeted, shooting incidents.

While the guns and gangs unit continues to investigate the majority of the 30 reported shooting incidents this year, police Chief Charles Bordeleau said at Monday evening’s police board meeting that the unit continues to make real progress in its investigations despite the plague of a lack of witness and victim co-operation.

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Police continue to conduct compliance checks on people with known gang ties who have previously faced criminal charges and have been released back into the community on conditions, Bordeleau said. Those checks alone have resulted in 26 charges against people breaching their conditions.

The gang strategy, a joint effort by various groups, including police, continues to try build a sense of neighbourhood in gang-affected communities to get people to start rejecting gang activity, help those same communities build support steps when a shooting or traumatic incident does occur, stop the gang recruitment of younger siblings and other at-risk youth and provide exit strategies for those caught up in the gang life.