The Edmonton Police Commission provided updated details on Thursday, looking into the homicides in the city so far this year.
The data released by police on Thursday looked at the homicides that happened between Jan. 1, 2017 and Sept. 26, 2017. Police said there were 37 homicides in Edmonton during this time. However, the city has recorded two more homicides since this report was published.
From the number of homicides to where and how they happened, here is a closer look at the details of the city’s first 37 homicides of the year, by the numbers.
Total number
Between Jan. 1, 2017 and Sept. 26, 2017, there have been 37 homicides in Edmonton. This is slightly higher than the same time last year, when Edmonton had recorded 33 homicides.
Police believe it is “reasonable to suggest” by the end of 2017, Edmonton will record more homicides than it did in 2016.
“It’s so hard to predict. I’d like to say, ‘That’s it. There’s going to be no more homicides this year.’ but regrettably, I don’t think that’s going to be the case,” police chief Rod Knecht said.
“We know they’re going to go up, but we have no idea to what extent.”
How many homicides have been solved?
Of the 37 homicides so far this year, 22 — or 59 per cent — of the homicides have been solved. That leaves 15 homicides police have yet to solve.
“We’d like to have a 100 per cent clearance rate but I think that’s a manifestation of the complexity of the files that we’re dealing with now, resourcing and just a wide variety of things,” Knecht said.
“Edmonton is a big city now and we have big-city crime here.”
Looking back over the past four years, the number of homicides cleared by police by this time of year varies. At this point in 2016, police had cleared 62 per cent of the homicides. That compares to 79 per cent cleared in 2015, 94 per cent cleared in 2014 and 86 per cent cleared in 2013.
Where did the homicides take place?
The vast majority of the homicides this year have happened on the north side of the city. Twenty-three – or 62 per cent – of the homicides have happened in the northeast and northwest divisions, police said.
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Four of the homicides have happened downtown, two in the west end, three in the southeast and five in the southwest.
Fifty-seven per cent of the homicides have happened in private locations, while the remaining 43 per cent have happened in public.
Types of homicides
Nearly half of this year’s homicides have been shootings. Here’s how they break down:
- Shootings – 43 per cent
- Stabbings – 35 per cent
- Physical force – 13 per cent
- Arson – three per cent
- Other weapon – three per cent
- Other cause – three per cent
Here’s how the types of homicides broke down in 2016:
- Shootings – 38 per cent
- Stabbings – 29 per cent
- Physical force – 12 per cent
- Other weapon – nine per cent
- Drugs/fentanyl – five per cent
- Holdback (police not disclosing cause) – five per cent
- Vehicle – two per cent
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“Although it may visually seem that shootings and stabbings have increased from 2016 to 2017, the number of shootings stayed the same and stabbings increase by one occurrence,” the police report read.
Police also noted that this data will likely change by the end of 2017.
Who were the victims?
Of the homicides so far this year, 78 per cent of the victims were male and the other 22 per cent were female.
The majority of the victims, 14 of them, were between the ages of 20 and 29. Three of the victims were younger than nine years old. Four of the victims were between 10 and 19 years old. There have been seven victims between the ages of 30 and 39; two between 40 and 49; four between 50 and 59; and three over the age of 60.
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Who are the people accused of the crimes?
When it comes to the people accused in the homicides, 85 per cent are men and 15 per cent are women. Three of the accused are between the ages of 10 and 19; seven are between 20 and 20 years old; 13 are between the ages of 30 and 39; two are between 40 and 49; one is between 50 and 59 and one is over 60 years old.
Relationships between victims and accused
Of the homicides so far this year, 46 per cent of the victims knew the suspect in the case. So far this year, there have been four domestic homicides, all of which have been cleared by police.
When did the homicides happen?
Forty-one per cent of homicides took place during the day, while 57 per cent took place at night time.
When it comes to the day of the week the homicides took place, they break down as follows:
- Monday – 4
- Tuesday – 3
- Wednesday – 7
- Thursday – 6
- Friday – 7
- Saturday – 5
- Sunday – 5
Knecht said in his time with the EPS, the city tends to see spike in homicides in October and November. The reason why is unknown.
“It seems October and November, we seem to have an increase. Hopefully this year it’ll be the anomaly but historically, the previous four years, in October and November we seem to get a little bit of a spike,” he said.
“I’m hoping that’s not the case this year because we did start out with an increase in homicides in the first three or four months and then it sort of levelled off for a little while and now we’re hitting the 40 mark here right now and we still have a couple months to go.”
On top of these investigations, the EPS Homicide Unit has been involved in 39 other investigations.
“Often times these files are equally or even more resource-taxing than a traditional homicide file,” the police commission report reads.
In 2016, there were 42 homicides in Edmonton. The city saw the most homicides in one year in 2011, when there were 48.