THUNDER BAY -- The city may or may not be the murder capital of Canada for 2012.
But with six murders documented and two potential victims in critical condition in hospital, Thunder Bay Police Chief J.P. Levesque said the increase from four in 2011 is a disturbing trend, one he’d like to see reversed this year.
“Certainly at the end of the year we had quite an increase in the number of violent situations. So that’s not going to help our numbers,” Levesque said. “But again, they’re numbers, right? We should be talking about the human life that’s involved here.”
In the final week of 2012 city police responded to a violent assault that’s left a man in hospital fighting for his life, a homicide and beating that left one man dead and another in critical condition, and allegations of a brutal sexual assault the victim has deemed a hate crime for comments made by her attackers.
“I think if you saw if we had an increase of two or three (homicides) in a year, you’d maybe think it was a blip. But we’re certainly trending toward probably being No. 1 in the country for homicide rates for 2012,” Levesque said.
“So it’s not a blip. We have a problem in this city with violent crime and the police can’t do it on our own. We need help. There’s all kinds of issues, education issues, poverty, homelessness and addictions. So we need a lot of help with this.
The silver lining in an otherwise ominous cloud of violent crime is that the crimes aren’t necessarily being committed on the street, putting the general public at risk. The vast majority of the city’s homicides were committed by people who knew each other, with one happening inside the Thunder Bay Correctional Centre. Almost none of the violent crimes reported are random acts.
Thunder Bay doesn’t have drive-by shootings like larger centres, and gun crime is at a bare minimum.
That said, something must be done to stem the tide, Levesque said.
“The really unfortunate part of this is we’re talking about human life here. These aren’t statistics. They’re people. One’s too many, so certainly when we see a number like six, it causes us great concern and it should cause concern within the community,” he said.
“The police are not the answer here. The answer lies within community involvement and getting all kinds of stakeholders involved as far as addiction and mental health and things of those nature.”
According to non-official stats gathered by Thunder Bay Television, the city in 2012 experienced about 4.9 murders per 100,000 residents, 1.1 deaths more than its nearest rival, Winnipeg.
Regina, Saskatoon and Edmonton rounded out the top five, with Toronto topping the list of most homicides overall with 54 in 2012.
Unfortunately it’s not as simple as putting more officers on the street. In fact, that probably wouldn’t do much good, at least in lowering the homicide rate.
“Certainly as a police service, the more violent crimes like the homicides are very difficult to prevent. We’re seeing, as we’ve seen in the past, these types of incidences being fuelled by drug and alcohol addiction, family violence and things of those natures,” Levesque said.
The police chief isn’t the only one with concerns.
Mayor Keith Hobbs, who spent decades as a police officer, said the violence that plagued Thunder Bay at the end of 2012 was disconcerting.
“It’s not a good way to end the year. We’re going to have to put a real effort forward in 2014 to stem the violence, “ Hobbs said.
“You’re always going to have homicides, but when you get six, possibly seven in one year, it’s not a good stat. It doesn’t make me happy, especially when we talk about community safety and this being a safe community.”
Hobbs promised the city and its crime prevention committee are looking at solutions and have introduced things like an alcohol management program, which Levesque said doesn’t go far enough and needs more beds to be effective.
“Basically we have a lot more work to do,” Hobbs said.
