Man shot dead by Winnipeg police during hostage situation was suspect in death of missing trucker

A man shot dead by Winnipeg officers during a hostage situation in the city's West Broadway area on Thursday was a suspect in the death of a missing trucker from British Columbia, police say.

Officers were called around 1:45 p.m. to an apartment block the corner of Furby Street and Cornish Avenue about a 19-year-old woman being held captive by a man armed with an edged weapon.

The man barricaded himself and the woman inside a suite where two other adults and a child were also being held against their will, police Chief Danny Smyth said.

Eventually, a 33-year-old woman and a three-year-old child were released from the suite, and a 23-year-old man escaped by scaling down the exterior of the building from a third-floor balcony.

All three were all taken into the care of the tactical support team (TAC) while the initial hostage remained in the suite with the armed man.

The TAC team's crisis negotiators were able to talk with the man and determined the woman's life was in imminent danger as he would not allow her to leave.

Just after 5 p.m. the TAC team broke into the suite, during which the man was shot and killed, Smyth said. The woman was not injured.

Smyth said the man was a suspect in the death of Farah Ali Mohamud, 34, a long-haul truck driver from British Columbia, who was reported missing shortly after arriving in Winnipeg with a load on Dec. 22.

He was scheduled to pick up another load Saturday morning when his truck was found in the parking lot behind the Sherbrook Inn, about a block away from the apartment on Furby.

Mohamud's body was found on Boxing Day inside a fifth-floor suite of the apartment, police said Friday. Initially, they told media earlier in the week that his body had been found in a house in the neighbourhood.

Mohamud, a father to three young children, moved to Canada from Somalia in 2011, according to his father, Ali, who spoke with CBC News on Tuesday after driving to Winnipeg from Edmonton to search for his son.

Mohamud finished making a delivery in Winnipeg Friday morning and parked at a Flying J Travel Centre to rest, said a source with knowledge of the victim's itinerary. 

CBC is not naming the source because they are worried about their job. 

Hours later, the truck began moving again, but Mohamud wasn't logged into an app on his phone that allows the driver to operate the vehicle, the source said.