Town hall over public violence in Calgary goes Wednesday

Recent instances of violence are triggering some difficult conversations in Calgary, and city councillors want better communication between the police and the public.

An invite-only event Wednesday has community association representatives from a bunch of different neighbourhoods around the city, including Wards 5, 9, and 10, coming together to address concerns from the public around safety following what police say are targeted stabbings and shootings.

Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot, who is organizing the event, says this had to happen following public attacks in his ward.

“With these kind of brazen activities happening in public, at random locations, with seemingly total disregard for human life — there’s been a lot of innocent bystanders injured through this process, they’re scared, they’re scared to even go to certain locations because of this activity happening in these seemingly random places,” he said.

There have been growing calls for more conversations regarding violence in the city, following separate stabbings at two different malls last Friday, and numerous brazen public shootings this month.

A lot of these shootings, appear to be connected to organized crime, as police try to tie together who is involved.

“The conflict is fluid and it changes just as fast as we get a handle on who these groups are,” said Supt. Cory Dayley. “Their motives change, their affiliations and allegiances within the group change and so that creates this sort-of constant conflict.”

“It’s concerning to us, as we’ve stated in each one of those other cases,” he said earlier this month. “We are extremely concerned, we’re working very hard with multiple teams around the clock to connect the dots.”

Criminologist Ritesh Narayan says it appears competition between gangs is getting more fierce, partly because of more people moving to the city and the province, in return, it’s leading to more conflict

“The offenders are becoming more and more brazen,” he explained. “They are out there to send a very strong message to those that oppose them.”

Narayan said it appears gangs are getting more violent with one another, partly because as more people move to the city, competition increases.

“‘Alberta is Calling’ has definitely had some unintended consequences and one of the major consequences, I think, is a rise in gang activity,” he said.

CPS data shows that shootings are actually down, compared to this time last year.

“These people know who their targets are, they know who the other groups in town are and they are prepared to take action when they see or come upon these people, which is why we’re seeing some of the more brazen daytime or public shootings is they might not get a second chance and they take the opportunity when they see it, which is something that we don’t need happening in Calgary,” Dayley explained.

But, Wednesday’s town hall is expected to get the ball rolling on a wide array of issues and concerns that communities are having right now in regards to violence as people call for increased safety in public, and in their own homes.