‘Don’t hit him’: Police alerted to Abdirahman Abdi’s mental illness during encounter [Video]

The Abdirahman Abdi inquest is being livestreamed during the day here.

Several people warned Ottawa police that Abdirahman Abdi was mentally unstable on the day of officers’ violent struggle with him, according to newly-disclosed details. 

Abdi, a 38-year-old Somali-Canadian, died in hospital the next day, triggering a criminal trial against one of the officers — who was ultimately acquitted of manslaughter — a lawsuit settled soon after the trial, and now a weeks-long coroner’s inquest that heard its second day of testimony on Tuesday.

Released during the inquest’s launch on Monday, an agreed statement of facts offered additional insights into the circumstances surrounding Abdi’s high-profile death in July 2016. 

The two Ottawa police officers involved in the violent altercation with Abdi in front of his apartment building were initially responding to calls that Abdi had groped, touched or grabbed women in and around a coffee shop in Hintonburg.

One officer chased him to the apartment alcove and was then joined …