New funding coming to reduce crime in Alberta, Calgary police say April spike not as high as expected

The Alberta Government will announce new, community-based funding Wednesday to help reduce crime across Alberta.

Justice Minister and Solicitor General Tyler Shandro, along with Edmonton's police chief and members of the Alberta RCMP will make the announcement at 1 p.m.

Calgary police responded to two separate shootings on Monday, with both victims being taken to hospital with gunshot wounds.

The service will provide a report to the Calgary Police Commission on Wednesday afternoon outlining crime statistics in the month of April.

The service says Calgary saw a slight decrease in city-wide disorder activity compared to the five-year average, with 369 fewer calls.

Year-to-date disorder activity has increased slightly, by 1,088 calls. Unwanted guests, suspicious persons, and disturbances accounted for 61 per cent of disorder related calls for service in April.

The report says non-domestic violent crime has continued to trend with the five-year average.

One of the key findings from the patterns of the past several months is that the violent incidents in recent months have been highly correlated with both temperature and the amount of economic activities resulting from public health restrictions, that were fully lifted in February,

“The volume of incidents in April was lower than the previous expectation,” outlined the report.

“This trend will continue to be monitored over the next several months to determine if this is a temporary effect.”

Police say demand for their service is ramping up for large-scale community events, including the Calgary Flames playoff run.

In April, there were more calls for police assistance, with 33,266 calls, eclipsing the five-year average of 31,808 and last year’s total for April of a little more than 31,000.