The last month hasn’t been easy for Shanlisscia Thompson and her family.
Thompson is a relative of Tyler Richards, Naricho Clayton and Daverico Downey; all three of the municipalities latest homicide victims.
“The old people are dying of natural causes and the young people are taken out by each other,” Thompson said in an interview with Global News.
READ MORE: Police working around the clock to solve recent Halifax homicides
Friday morning, Thompson looked outside her window and noticed a lot of police activity, immediately thinking something was wrong.
“When I looked out this morning and seen them, I thought something else had went wrong and I thought, no, not again, my heart can’t handle that again.”
Thompson says she doesn’t think people in Halifax are taking the recent string of murders seriously.
“Right now, I feel like people in the community need to stop with this ‘no snitching’ rule,” she said.
“It scares me knowing that we can’t go certain places or if we do go certain planes we got to be careful. Okay we got to be careful everywhere — but I feel like a lot of people are taking this as a joke and laughing about it. It’s not a joke.”
Friday, police were in two Dartmouth neighbourhoods putting up posters and setting up a command centre, hoping to get information about the unsolved murder of Joseph Cameron or any of the other homicides in the city.
Cameron, 20, was found shot to death on a sidewalk along Mount Edward Road on March 29.
READ MORE: Family, friends remember homicide victim Joseph Cameron at service
Police say setting up in the community to investigate is a bit of a unique approach, but they are hoping it will pay off.
“We’re just wanting people to feel comfortable if they have any — even the smallest amount of information, it could be extremely helpful to our case,” Halifax Regional Police spokesperson Const. Dianne Woodworth said.
Thompson says she’s grateful police are trying new methods to help solve crime, and hopefully bring closure to the families of victims.
“Do what you gotta do,” Thompson said. “You got to be hands on, get both feet in there. Innocent people are being shot and killed because of someone else’s problems and whatnot.”
RELATED: ‘We cannot arrest our way out of this problem’: Halifax police chief on gun violence
Halifax Regional Police continue to ask anyone with information about any of the four recent homicides in HRM to speak up.
“We realize people have different reasons for people not coming forward, whether it be fear or loyalty or not knowing how to do it,” Woodworth said.
“People are dying, so we just want people to come forward and help us stop this violence. It’s absolutely not worth it and we need some closure to the families”
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