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Accident – death – Obituary News : Breadcrumb Trail LinksLocal NewsShootings take a heavy toll on police and health-care resources, said Calgary police Chief Mark Neufeld
Published Dec 27, 2023 • Last updated 8 minutes ago • 4 minute read
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Calgary police at the scene of a shooting in the block 1000 of 39 St. S.E. on Saturday, July 22, 2023. Azin Ghaffari/Postmedia file
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Calling it a top target heading into 2024, Calgary police Chief Mark Neufeld is vowing to further curb shootings and said federal gun control legislation could help achieve that.
Gunplay, along with social disruption, will be the prime focus of his members in the coming year after a 2023 that saw a reduction in the number of shootings in the city, said Neufeld.
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“This year we’ve been able to make some progress — last year was a high year. Last year at this time we had 127 shootings in the city, today we have 95,” he said.
That’s down 22 per cent over 2022, said Neufeld, and those numbers appear even more positive when compared to the more than 500 shootings recorded across the province, which is up 30 per cent over the previous year.
“We’ve been able to buck the trend a little bit here in Calgary and I think that’s attributable to the good work being done by the membership,” said the chief, who oversees about 3,200 sworn and civilian personnel.
“But we’ve had 95 shootings, so at the end of the day citizens, business owners, elected officials and police are super concerned, because some of the shootings have been really brazen and irresponsible and they basically are very damaging to the community.”
Shootings, he said, also take a heavy toll on police and health-care resources.
About eight hours after Neufeld spoke with Postmedia, the city recorded its 96th shooting of 2023, with a man dying from his wounds and a woman suffering critical injuries following an assault in the Forest Lawn area.
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Neufeld said Calgary police are determined to suppress the number of shootings by focusing on what’s largely a known group of offenders that includes repeat violators.
This year, police identified 1,100 people involved with high-risk lifestyles and targeted 350 of them for monitoring, while arresting 80 to 90 of those, said Neufeld.
Those efforts will continue, he added.
“We focus on dangerous people, dangerous locations and dangerous activities that are connected to gun violence,” said Neufeld.
“We’re having some luck with that, we’re having some good results . . . I’d love to see those numbers cut in half.”
New gun control measures could help in fight against crime: Neufeld
The newly proclaimed federal Bill C-21 — which freezes new handgun ownership and distribution, increases penalties for firearms smuggling and further targets 3D ghost guns — could bring some dividends to that fight, said Neufeld.
About 50 per cent of the handguns used criminally in Calgary are stolen from lawful owners, he said.
“Over time, potentially, we may see less handguns being available,” said Neufeld.
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“But we also have to remember we share a border with the country with the most handguns per capita in the world, so we know smuggling and border integrity is an issue.”
Calgary Police Chief Mark Neufeld speaks at a press conference on Monday, April 3, 2023. Photo by Azin Ghaffari /Postmedia
The portion of the new legislation that deals with 3D-printed ghost guns is a positive step, he said, and police say action against them is increasingly needed.
Calgary police seized one 3D-printed gun in each of 2020 and 2021. Last year, the department seized 17 off the streets of Alberta’s largest city.
But a larger concern and frustration for police is the revolving custody door allowing dangerous offenders to repeat their crimes, said Neufeld.
“The laws in place right now are actually good and work for us, but the bigger issue is bail and the fact that they continue to be released — even the most violent ones — into our communities,” he said.
There’s some hope, said Neufeld, that the federal government’s Bill C-48 will tighten bail restrictions on repeat and violent offenders, while $53 million in funding from Ottawa over the next five years targeting guns and gangs “will close some of the (enforcement gaps).”
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Organized crime groups in Calgary heading into 2024 remain less identifiable than 15 years ago, when an alphabet soup of gangs lethally battled each other, said Neufeld.
“What we have today are more networks and the relationships within those networks are more fleeting — you have people who are not aligned today suddenly coming together for profit, and they may separate again,” he said.
“It presents some challenges in how you gather intelligence.”
But he says those networks still carry on the same activities, such as trafficking drugs and weapons.
“It hasn’t gone away,” said Neufeld.
— With files from Postmedia
BKaufmann@postmedia.com
X (Twitter): @BillKaufmannjrn
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