City leads country in gun slayings
Rate more than double Toronto's
Trish Audette and Jamie Hall
The Edmonton Journal
Thursday, October 18, 2007
EDMONTON - Edmonton has the worst record in Canada for firearms homicides, Statistics Canada reported Wednesday.
Fifteen of the area's 39 homicide victims died by gunfire last year, giving the city and surrounding area the highest rate among Canada's largest cities.
The figures were included in a report that showed a 10-per-cent drop in the national homicide rate in 2006 after two years of increases.
While Greater Toronto had 34 shooting deaths in 2006, the numbers are based on population, which makes Toronto's rate less than half that of Greater Edmonton.
The finding comes on the heels of a provincewide gun amnesty last year that allowed Albertans to hand over unregistered firearms without punishment.
Edmonton police Chief Mike Boyd said the service may discuss offering another such amnesty with the province.
"I'm concerned about every single homicide we have in this city," Boyd said.
He noted that the City of Edmonton had 36 homicides last year compared with 39 in 2005. At this time last year, city police reported 11 gun-related homicides, compared with eight victims of fatal gunshot wounds this year.
Boyd also said the jump in gun-related murders is due partly to a triple slaying at a downtown nightclub last November.
"We're going to be continuing to work on our gun violence and all of our violence," he said, adding the city police force maintains close ties with nearby RCMP detachments in fighting organized crime.
According to the Statistics Canada study, handguns were used in homicides more often than shotguns and rifles in 2006. And the majority of firearms recovered from homicides were not registered with the Canadian Firearms Centre.
Despite the statistics, shooting deaths were actually down overall, and knives overtook guns as homicide weapons.
Over the past 20 years, shootings and stabbings across the country have each accounted for about a third of all homicides.
The report also showed that Edmonton is no longer the murder capital of the country, a fact first revealed in July in a StatsCan report on overall crime figures. That dubious distinction, held for 2005, now belongs to Regina, which had nine homicides in 2006, or 3.97 per 100,000 population. Edmonton was second highest, with 36, or 3.68 per 100,000.
The rate of killings by offenders 17 and under was at its highest ever last year, at 18.
taudette@thejournal.canwest.com
jhall@thejournal.canwest.com
© The Edmonton Journal 2007
