Calgary has seen five shootings in the past 20 days, with two of them in broad daylight.
The city’s top cop says he understands that some people are jumping to conclusions about what’s happening on Calgary’s streets.
“People rightfully ask, ‘Like, is there a gang war or something going on?’” Chief Mark Neufeld said on Global Morning News.
“And I would tell you that, no, that’s not what’s going on in this city right now. But this is not to downplay what is going on.
“The threat picture is much different.”
According to press releases from the Calgary Police Service, shots were fired on Oct. 27 at 1:15 p.m. on Pinemill Way Northeast, Oct. 31 at 11:20 p.m. on Sherwood Square Northwest, on Nov. 9 at 11:50 p.m. on Marcombe Drive Northeast, and on Nov. 11 at 4:05 a.m. on Abbotsford Drive Northeast. And most recently, on Nov. 13 at 2 p.m. in the 1400 block of 52 Street Northeast, 23-year-old Rami Hajj Ali became the 18th homicide victim of the year.
To date, there have been 88 shootings this year, with one-quarter attributable to organized crime. That’s down from 121 on this day a year ago.
Police say the number of shootings this year is consistent with the five-year average.
Calgary’s mayor and council are concerned about the number of recent shootings.
“Like every Calgarian, I’m incredibly concerned that we’re seeing more violence, especially gun violence, on our streets,” Mayor Jyoti Gondek said. “I can tell you the council is incredibly concerned about this, so much so that on Tuesday we had a special meeting with members of Calgary Police Commission, as well as members of the (police) service.”
Gondek said that special meeting allowed for councillors to ask questions directly to police and the civilian oversight body, resulting in some “quite valuable” information.
“Police commission and the police service are dedicated to making sure that they’re addressing what is happening in our city and they’re absolutely interested in taking care of citizens and protecting our communities,” Gondek said.
Neufeld said it’s easy to think that the city has fallen back into some sort of 2009-style gang war. At that time, the FOBs and the FKs had openly declared a gang war.
The difference now is that the parties involved in gang activity and shooting now don’t have as clear-cut loyalties.
“They’re not as discernible and I think the relationships are sort of fleeting,” Neufeld said. “So we see people moving back and forth between groups.”
That fits with a flattening of organizational structures that Harpreet Aulakh, Mount Royal University associate professor in criminal justice, has recently observed in her study of youth involvement in gangs.
Gone are the top-down power structures, she said.
“There are many groups these days that we are seeing are adopting a more horizontal approach. That means that this horizontal setup is there where there are cliques and crews, they form these groups, they consist of individuals who are linked to one another – known to other gangs as well, even those people are those groups that have once been adversaries,” Aulakh said.
“If we look at the younger members, the youth gangs, they particularly lack strict organizations, they don’t have rigid structures. The gangs resemble loose associations and they lack those stringent regulations dictating their behaviours and expectations.”
That fluid membership structure means groups can assemble and dissolve very quickly.
“With these collaborations and alignments, there are still conflicts happening, they remain prevalent. So the co-operation can occur in activities like drug trades or opposing rival gangs if they have common enemies. But these clashes and violence, they often centre around drug trafficking, those kinds of primary catalysts for conflicts,” Aulakh said.
The most recent shooting allegedly involved two brothers, a 14-year-old boy and 18-year-old man, who made a brief court appearance Thursday morning. The 14-year-old faces charges of first-degree murder and attempted murder.
Aulakh said while 14 seems young to get into gang activity, it’s not unprecedented.
“We have seen gang affiliations and associations at a much younger age as well in the past, and there have been young preteens and teenagers trying to associate or hang out with the actual known gang members and kind of adapt their behaviours to be picked up,” the MRU professor said.
“But the thing is the availability of firearms that is (disturbing) and a 14-year-old with a gun involved in a shooting,” she said. “And the willingness to use (guns).”
Neufeld said while the city has a number of early intervention programs designed to prevent kids from entering organized crime, there are “probably some capacity issues.”
“When you have young people who are impressionable, who can be influenced by older peers who they respect and that type of thing, you can actually get people who are engaged in risk-taking behaviour and maybe aren’t quite mature enough to connect to the consequences. And so that can be a dangerous situation,” the police chief said.
He said that’s an opportunity for the community to look for places and times to intervene and prevent entry into gang life.
The police chief said CPS has a “sophisticated” way of looking at people who are likely to become involved in shootings, as either the suspect or victim.
“We know that crime is not everywhere in the city: it concentrates. We know that violence concentrates even more and gun violence even more than that,” Neufeld said. “So our response is based on identifying those most likely to be involved in the lifestyle and then making sure that we’re focused on them as we need to be.
“We’re seeing some successes from that, but there’s still lots of work to do.”