Man shot to death in downtown, as concern over public safety in Calgary rises

It was a violent night in Calgary’s downtown, as police were called to another shooting.

Just after 9 p.m. Thursday, officers were called to a fatal shooting at 6 Street and 10 Avenue SE.

Police confirmed to CityNews the victim was a man, and say there is no threat to the public.

This comes following a string of violent incidents, which is sparking fear among many Calgarians.

In response to increasing public safety concerns, Calgary police and city councillors hosted a closed-door town hall meeting in Marlborough on Wednesday.

Ward 5 Coun. Raj Dhaliwal says even though gun violence is down by 25 per cent compared to this time last year, his constituents are still living in fear.

“With people, there’s always anxiety, every time you hear another gun went off, people are anxious,” he said. “And, given the sequence — like the last two weeks we had four or five days where we had pretty much every day there was some sort of a firearm going off.”

A shooting was reported in Abbeydale on Nov. 11, then another days later in MacEwan.

On Nov. 13, Calgary police were called to a shooting in Bowness and later, Marlborough Park, after a 23-year-old was shot to death.

Dhaliwal says a disturbing trend is emerging.

“What we are seeing now is the nature of that crime is changing,” he explained. “Only 25 per cent of the gun crime is associated to organized crime, 25 per cent is more about neighbours pulling guns on each other, road rages.”

The councillor adds he is hopeful more discussions, like the one Wednesday in Marlborough, can take place in the future.

He says these conversations are critical.

“It was more of a process for what I call confidence building measures,” Dhaliwal said. “I don’t want to say confidence was shattered.

“But things become fragile in a way given what has happened in the past month or even two weeks, so it was nice for community members to sit together and have those conversations.”

Calgary Police tells CityNews that as of Friday, Dec. 1, there have been 95 shootings in the city.