Homicides, shootings, calls for service down in Calgary: police

Calgary police shared their annual update at city hall on Wednesday, reporting fewer homicides and shootings in the last year compared to the five-year average.

Calgary Police Chief Mark Neufeld said while there’s been a decrease in violent crime, there were also 21,000 fewer calls for service.

“This year we were a bit anomalous, in that the number of calls for service has gone down because of some of the work that we’ve done,” he said.

Calgary was among the top three cities in Canada who saw their crime severity index drop last year.

Neufeld credits, in part, the community engagement response team and 50 provincially-funded officers for the dip in disorder calls in public spaces.

Coun. Courtney Walcott, however, says that an “overly toxic” drug supply that led to hundreds of deaths from 2022 to 2023 could be another reason for the decrease in calls.

“We try and talk about these numbers as if they’re always positive, and they’re always like ‘Oh look, people are healing, and that’s the reason why you’re seeing the numbers drop.’

“There’s a significant reality that the opposite is true, it’s just that a large portion of our most vulnerable users passed away,” he said.

Police said they also seized more than 500 crime guns in the last year. While gun violence may be down, they have seen more ‘edged weapons’ now than ever before.

“Numbers of that type of behaviour have gone up significantly,” Neufeld said.

He says many are found in encampments, and security guards or loss prevention officers are the ones most assaulted.