Over the course of the New Year’s weekend in Edmonton, four people lost their lives to violence and at least one of those deaths has been confirmed as a homicide.
“We’ve experienced an extremely busy period within the last three or four days,” said Sgt. Aubrey Zalaski with the Edmonton Police Service’s media relations unit.
From Friday, Dec. 30, 2022 to Tuesday, police responded to the four deaths, three non-lethal shootings and numerous weapons complaints involving knives and bear spray.
Zalaski said, unfortunately, spikes in crime are not uncommon and can happen at any time.
“There’s no such thing anymore as a quiet season or a busy season — any and every day could be similar to what we’ve experienced here over the last few days.”
The overnight death of a man in southeast Edmonton last Friday was the 31st homicide of 2022.
Police responded just after 12:30 a.m. to a home in the Laurel neighbourhood after gunshots were heard near 26 Street and 19A Avenue.
Officers arrived to find a man had been shot several times so they began to administer first aid. EMS took the man to hospital but he died.
An autopsy done Tuesday determined Sheldon Nelson, 28, died of multiple gunshot wounds and his death is classified as a homicide. As of Tuesday afternoon, no arrests had been made.
The city had barely rung in the new year when another Edmontonian lost their life, just blocks away from the Friday morning homicide scene.
It happened at the Boardwalk Tamarack East and West townhouse complex on Mill Woods Road East/38 Street and 16 A Avenue.
Police responded to a disturbance around 2:45 a.m., and arrived at the complex in the Pollard Meadows neighbourhood to find an injured 51-year-old man and 21-year-old woman.
The man was taken to hospital but died. His autopsy is scheduled to take place this upcoming Friday.
The woman was hospitalized with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
While looking into the Mill Woods death, police found a burned-out vehicle back over in the Laurel neighbourhood. It was discovered on a new home construction lot, about a dozen blocks east, near 24 Street and 14 Avenue.
Police said they think the 2012 white Dodge Ram truck is connected to the death and are looking for home security and dashcam footage in the area of the townhouse complex and where the burned-out truck was located.
Barely 10 hours later, homicide detectives were called north of the downtown core to another suspicious death on Sunday.
Police responded around 1 p.m. to a sudden death at a bungalow on 106 Street, just north of 107 Avenue, and arrived to find a man dead inside.
Homicide detectives are still working to identify him and as of Tuesday, an autopsy has yet to be scheduled.
The fourth death in as many days happened early Monday morning, when an injured man was found outside a men’s homeless shelter in central Edmonton.
At around 6:30 a.m., EMS responded to a man outside the Hope Mission’s Herb Jamieson Centre on the corner of 100 Street and 105A Avenue.
The unnamed man, who was 32, was taken to hospital but died. Staff at the hospital noticed his injuries looked like gunshot wounds and got the police involved.
An autopsy in that suspicious death has been scheduled for Jan. 9. No arrests have been made in any of the deaths.
In addition to the fatalities, in recent days police said there have been three non-lethal shootings, as well as numerous weapons complaints involving knives and bear spray.
Police said some of the incidents of note include a 50-year-old man who is facing charges after he allegedly barricaded himself in a home with firearms on Dec. 30 and a weapons complaint at Eaux Claires Transit Centre that involved bear spray and a firearm that same day.
There was also a shooting on Jan. 1 where a man showed up in hospital with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds.
“It has been an exceptionally violent weekend in the city,” Zalaski said.
“Our homicide personnel are stretched to their max.”
Police said the homicide section has started to lean on other investigative areas to keep up.
“Sometimes we may have to pull resources from other proactive activities in order to assist, much like we can do when the patrol officers on the street are busy,” said Zalaski, who recently joined the media relations team after spending three years on the homicide unit.
“Homicide unto itself is within a division of investigative units, so there are a lot of competent and experienced investigators that are investigating other crimes. They can be temporarily loaned or moved to homicide section to assist with the backlog in the workload until such time everything stabilizes.”
Shootings are up across the city and several times last year, the Edmonton Police Service held news conferences to speak about the rash of gunfire.
In September, there were 10 shootings in nearly as many days — half of which happened over the Labour Day long weekend.
Then in October, there were five more unrelated shootings over the course of three days.
Last month, police spoke out about 10 shootings that happened between Nov. 30 and Dec. 8. In total, there were 21 reported shootings in December 2022, compared to seven in December 2021.
University of Alberta criminology professor Temitope Oriola said a spike in violent crime is expected in December, but this year-over-year increase is extraordinary.
“We should be looking at the root causes of these shootings. Are these gang-related shootings? And so intra- or inter-gang rivalries — or are these shootings involving random acts on our streets, or are these shootings incidents of domestic violence?”
Zalaski said it is too early to determine if any of the recent deaths were the result of gang violence, but it’s something investigators are looking into.
“Obviously, we want to get to the answer just as fast as anybody, but sometimes those things aren’t as obvious or easy to figure out as we would like them to be.”
EPS investigators don’t just look at local trends — they also see what is happening in other major urban centres across the country: “Oftentimes, they are going through similar things as to what Edmonton is.”
In 2022, police responded to 165 shootings in total, compared to 150 the year before.
Oriola said it’s important to note police have been confiscating a steady stream of illegal firearms in Edmonton.
“That suggests that there are more of those illegal firearms in circulation. These firearms are in the wrong hands, in the hands of people who do not have the legal permits to own or carry them,” he said, while calling for a gun buyback program.
“These firearms are in the hands of individuals who are not hunters, they are not sportspersons and they are not even based in locations where those firearms are required as a necessity of everyday living.”
Police said while random crimes do happen, more often than not the victims and suspects are known to each other.
What is more random is where crime is occurring.
“Violence in the city is everywhere, maybe to different degrees at different times,” Zalaski said.
“I don’t think you can go anywhere in this city and say, ‘Well, there’s absolutely nothing going on here or absolutely no violence.’ At times it may seem like it’s distributed in one particular area, but then other times it will move to a different area.
“It’s really a moving target.”
Oriola said violent crimes like shootings can have major socio-psychological impacts on people, regardless of where they live.
“When there is a killing in your neighbourhood, that fundamentally alters your life template. It shatters your sense of safety, your sense of security in your neighbourhood, on your street and beyond your locality.
“It begins to shape the way citizens navigate the streets, as competent persons walking and navigating their way through life.”
Another report of gunfire came just after 12:30 a.m. Tuesday near 106 Street and 78 Avenue in Old Strathcona.
It was reported to police that shots were heard and then a man was seen running away from an apartment building with a gun.
EPS told Global News that officers later found a bullet casing in the main floor lobby. No injuries were reported.
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