Over 21 per cent of homicides remain unsolved in Calgary: report

Over 21 per cent of homicides remain unsolved in Calgary, according to a presentation to the Calgary Police Commission on Wednesday.

The Calgary Police Service said 440 homicides happened in Calgary between 2005 to 2021 — an average of 26 per year. Around 140 of those homicides can be attributed to organized crime and drugs; police attributed 80 to organized crime and 60 to drugs.

Another 144 homicides were caused by a firearm, according to the presentation.

Ninety-six of those homicides remain unsolved, the CPS said, including 50 organized crime-related homicides and 13 drug-related homicides.

Two-thirds of unsolved homicide cases were committed with guns and 60 per cent of unsolved homicides involved guns and organized crime, police said. Gun homicides are harder to solve because of the lack of physical evidence and witnesses are not as forthcoming to the police, according to the presentation.

“Oftentimes, community members know who’s involved in high-risk behaviours and they actually know who’s involved in a shooting,” said CPS Chief Mark Neufeld at Wednesday’s police commission meeting.

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“Sometimes they even come forward and tell the police who it is, but that doesn’t necessarily equate to hard evidence to a judge. There’s oftentimes this gap, that is built up between what people’s perceptions are of what the police can do relative to what they can do on.

“When the community sees people who may or may not be involved with violent crime, and they see them released again and again or they don’t see consequences … I think they’re very apprehensive to come forward.”

The police noted that almost half of the homicide victims are white (42 per cent). Around 17 per cent of homicide victims are Black, 13 per cent of victims are Indigenous and 11 per cent of victims are Asian.

Around eight per cent of victims are Middle Eastern while five per cent are South Asian and three per cent are Hispanic, police said.

Indigenous and racialized people are over-represented in homicide statistics given Calgary’s population breakdown, police said.

But Staff Sgt. Sean Gregson noted Calgary solves homicides that involve racialized victims faster than homicides that involve white victims. A number was not provided in the presentation, however.

“In Calgary, we invest heavily in our communities,” Gregson said.

“We have our diversity committee. We have people working in the community. That allows us, in a lot of cases, to create relationships that lead to trust and information exchange.”

Moving forward, the Calgary Police Service said it will try to take a trauma-informed approach to handling unsolved homicide cases. This includes updates on how and when officers contact victims’ families, as well as informing families about plans for communicating with them.

The police also said it will change the name of its cold case team to the historical unsolved homicide team.

The CPS said it will also update its homicide data to reflect trends from 2000 onwards.

“There are gaps in contacts with families, especially with cases that span decades,” Gregson said.

“We have investigators who have retired or we have families who are hostile towards police or don’t feel like they can connect to police.

“We recognize we have to solve this as part of our service so this doesn’t happen.”