Calgary's top cop says gun violence a major concern for police in 2022

With more than 120 shootings in Calgary over the year, Chief Mark Neufeld says the statistic is well above average and a major concern for him and his fellow officers.

Neufeld shared his comments on the trend during a year-end interview with CTV News, where he highlighted some of the other concerns for public safety in Calgary heading into 2023.

He says 2022's shooting incidents, in comparison to any year, "were too high" but there is some good news – Neufeld expects the violence to decrease.

"The cadence and the number of those have slowed down in the last couple of months and that's attributable to the good work that's being done," he said.

"We've announced a number of good arrests among people who are high-risk and engaging in high-risk lifestyles – people who are prone to do that type of thing in the city. That's starting to pay some dividends."

While some people may draw parallels between this year and 2015 – when there were two distinct groups of criminals fighting with one another – Neufeld dismissed the idea of a 'new gang war' in Calgary.

He says the environment is different now than it was back then.

"What we're seeing in Calgary is groups are not as distinguishable from one another, relationships are a bit more fleeting and folks are coming together for commerce or benefit around drug sales and then they're actually slipping away."

Nevertheless, Neufeld says 25 per cent of the shootings this year have been connected to organized crime.

"We've been to a number of shootings where a number of residents have heard gunfire. Members will get there and they'll find shell casings and stuff that suggests that, yes, there was a shooting that happened, but there is nobody hit."

He says those cases are quite difficult to solve, but are likely connected to organized crime.

Neufeld says the remaining 75 per cent of the shooting incidents "are a little bit bizarre."

"It's spread across the types of motivations. Whether it be domestic violence or road rage or people who are a little bit further down in the drug culture," he said.

"In terms of trends on whether it might be geographic, it might be times of the day or days of the week or individuals, it's been much harder."

Neufeld says those incidents are also much more difficult for members to deal with.

GUN LAWS TO EVOLVE

As for the guns being used in the crimes, Neufeld says the majority of the weapons seized by his members are illegally obtained.

"Some of them have been smuggled, some of them have been stolen, and they're possessed by people who cannot lawfully possess them now," he said.

With respect to gun laws, Neufeld says a lot of the existing legislation is quite effective and newer legislation, such as the federal government's outright ban on handguns, could take some time before it makes a difference.

"There may be a point in the future because of the ability or inability of people to get handguns and pass them on where there is just fewer of them around," he said.

"It may be something that may have an impact down the road."

ASSISTANCE IN CALLS FOR SERVICE

Neufeld says the CPS is also working with a number of other agencies in the city to help them with calls so police officers can be used in priority situations.

He says they've been "really effective" in handling the rising numbers of calls for service that come in.

"One is the expansion of our downtown outreach and addictions partnership (DOAP) – that's the partnership through Alpha House," he said. "We have a group of folks who go out instead of the police when there are concerns about somebody who looks vulnerable, sleeping in a doorway or whatever and that's worked really, really well."

Neufeld says mental health experts are also working with police to attend as many calls as they can to provide support.

"We actually developed a partnership with the Distress Centre where we actually have 211 operators in Calgary 911 right now and they've been able to evaluate and talk to folks that phone in that are reporting mental health concerns that are able to divert calls away from police response and back into community resources."

As recently as October, Neufeld says a partnership with the Alex and Alberta Health Services was forged to create a response from community responders who are not police officers.

That work is expected to begin as a pilot project in District 4 in the beginning of 2023, he says.

"We're really excited about that. One of the things we're doing in Calgary – we've looked across North America at different types of models and what was working and what we found was that, in some places, police was the first default response, there's places where there are community responses disconnected from police services.

Neufeld says if community partners need police to help out, the CPS can respond, but if police feel they need community support, that communication can be made.

"What we've done here in Calgary is a response together," he said.

"We're working with the community, the community is working with police."