Ottawa police have identified a 21-year-old man stabbed to death early Saturday in the 1700 block of Russell Road. Read MorePolice say Raphael Atende was stabbed in the 1700-block of Russell Road.
Police say Raphael Atende was stabbed in the 1700-block of Russell Road.
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Ottawa police have identified a 21-year-old man stabbed to death early Saturday in the 1700 block of Russell Road.
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In a release, police said Raphael Atende was stabbed to death just after midnight.
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It was the 15th homicide in the city this year.
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Police identified the scene as “Russell Heights.”
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The stabbing happened almost a week after a shooting occurred in the area on Thanksgiving Day, but no injuries were reported in the previous episode.
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Isabelle Arnedo, who lives on the main road just outside the Russell Heights complex, not far from the Ottawa Trainyards shopping area, said she was anxious and scared after learning about the latest incident.
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The Evening Citizen
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The Russell Heights area is a diverse family neighbourhood, she said. There are two school bus stops right in front of her house, and she used to take her daughter to the school across the street.
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“There’s families everywhere: families with kids in the morning, families walking around in the afternoon. There are families who recently arrived and there are blue-collar,” Arnedo told Postmedia.
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She also does a lot of volunteer work in the neighbourhood, including at the Russell Heights complex itself.
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The OCH neighbourhood runs programs for children and youth like academic support, recreational activities and skills development as well as adult programs to help families connect with each other.
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Still, there are a lot of disenfranchised youth in the area, especially since a lot of families cannot afford extracurricular activities after school, Arnedo said.
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“Not everyone has the cash flow to afford putting their kids in activities like tennis and hockey, especially if they’ve got two or three kids,” she added.
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“Sometimes I’ll see a newcomer family who moved across the street not properly dressed for winter, and I’ll run out with a winter coat and give it to them and say, ‘You just got here? It’s February. It’s -43 C. This is what you need to be wearing.’ They’ll thank me after.”
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Arnedo said the neighbourhood wasn’t to blame: robbery and violence can happen in rich neighbourhoods, too.
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She said she didn’t know what the solution was, but said kids loved seeing police in the area.
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“The violence, to me, speaks to the disenfranchisement in the area … There’s a great community centre here. I used to run a homework club here to help kids with math. There’s a lot of great things that happen here. There’s so much going on,” she said.