With Hamilton on course for a potential five-year high in shooting incidents, the city’s police service is fostering a message of “stronger, safer, together” to encourage the public to speak up about gun violence.
The plea comes amid a recent spate of brazen daytime gunfights Hamilton police Chief Frank Bergen characterizes as “alarming” and “not acceptable.”
“What is alarming about what is occurring in the last couple weeks is its reckless disregard for public safety and for seeing that these are happening at any hours of the day and in many cases during broad daylight,” Bergen revealed.
The 22 shootings is a marked increase year-over-year compared to January through May last year in which only 10 were reported, culminating in an annual decline in cases for 2023.
The current year-to-date numbers are the worst recorded since 2019.
The chief insists the general public has “a role to play” and that Hamilton police are taking steps to “get out of this cycle” by nurturing a “conversation with the community.”
“We have to remind you that we need to do it together with our community. We need to be calling out this action,” Bergen said.
“We need (the public) to be able to communicate to the police when we know that people are running around on our streets with guns.”
Bergen sought to bolster his ask for cooperation during a Wednesday press conference, revealing the majority of recent incidents have been targeted and taken place near schools, a daycare and other public spaces.
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That includes a mid-May shooting near Barton Street East and Kinrade Avenue in which a youngster could be seen walking down an alley moments before a clash between two men on foot and a driver.
“If that’s not alarming, then I don’t know what it is,” Bergen commented.
“Moments before these punks thought it was a good idea to target another gangster, … you saw a five year old walking down that alleyway coming home from school.”
Supt. Marty Schulenberg, who heads up a newly formed Shooting Response Unit probing non-lethal shootings, says they’ve had 62 investigations since forming in March of 2023.
Of 27 individuals arrested, 56 per cent have had prior weapons charges or been connected with shooting incidents.
“These shootings are often retaliatory in nature, and typically revolve around the use and trafficking of illicit drugs in our community,” Schulenberg explained.
He says most of the recent investigations have been “labor intensive” with investigators frequently met with “uncooperative or hesitant witnesses and victims.”
Det. Sgt. Steve Berezuik of the city’s Major Guns and Drugs Unit described the barrier between witnesses and police as “pretty complex” without one specific reason hindering progress in an investigation.
“They can often be deemed ‘rats’ and they’re belittled at the street level for that. That’s a problem,” said Berezuik. “That inhibits them coming forward. Oftentimes we see the people involved are in some type of subculture within the city and they’re fearful of even speaking to us.”
The former head of Toronto police’s homicide unit and Global News analyst Hank Idsinga says the so-called “loose bail system” is also a complication for authorities when trying to stem gun violence.
In January, Ontario announced invetments seeking to prevent repeat offenders committing serious crimes while out on bail by giving police more tools to track them.
“You need contributions from all levels, the federal government has to participate, the provincial government and municipal governments as well,” Idsinga suggested.
“The courts have to have zero tolerance for these types of shootings and the possession of firearms.”
Bergen says those conversations with the Ministry of the Attroney General and Crown attorneys around the bail system is happening.
He says the dialogue includes the Ontario Association Chiefs of Police and is incumbent upon the provinces police services “to put a case forward” to make the release of an offender more restrictive.
“What we are seeing is a pattern, and many times we are meeting people that we’ve already had many interactions with,” Bergen explained. “We also are working with our policing partners all across the province to make sure that they are aware of what this cycle is.”
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