Like other major cities across Canada, Ottawa has seen a rise in gun violence in recent years.
We know how unsettling this is for our communities and want to thank our community leaders and residents for their continued assistance and ideas to combat this and other crimes.
Gun violence is a top operational priority for our police service and we have a refocused strategy to address it.
That strategy includes an organizational-wide focus directly targeted at the activities and people involved in this violence and criminality.
Crime trends continually change and police will always have competing operational priorities. Our teams are working hard to balance these needs in the context of our population growth and changing urban landscape. We have realigned our investigative units, including Drugs, Street Crime, Intelligence and Surveillance to support our enhanced Guns and Gangs and DART teams. Together these investigators are focusing on persons of interest in our investigations.
There is always more work that needs to be done but this strategy is already seeing results.
For example, on Wednesday night, investigators arrested four men and seized two loaded handguns along with crack cocaine, marijuana and a large sum of money. One was linked to a recent break-in in our region.
We will continue to make arrests, seize guns and carry out investigations targeted at these criminals just as we saw during Project Sabotage where 14 people were arrested and 24 illegal guns were seized, this past December.
Our Frontline officers are conducting ongoing compliance checks on individuals who have been released on bail conditions and have been known to participate in these activities. Since last Friday, those activities resulted in about 55 compliance checks as well as more than 40 patrols of problem addresses and areas of interest to our investigators.
Our presence in schools remains as our School Resource Officers continue to develop relationships with young people and work with those demonstrating high risk factors.
Our Community Police Officers continue to engage with residents, city Councillors and community safety committees in their proactive work to address safety concerns.
We have excellent officers doing this very difficult work and while we currently have the resources we need in place, we know as this city grows we will need more resources to meet these changing demands.
This year, we are completing a three year, 75 new officer hiring plan that raises our Sworn Officer Complement to 1,380 in 2018. Our plan calls for the hiring of another 90 new officers between 2019 to 2021– this is in addition to the ongoing replacement of retiring officers.
Since the start of 2018, we have seen 13 shootings in Ottawa resulting in several injuries and two deaths.
The evidence so far links these shootings to a small number of criminals. These persons of interest are often involved in drug trafficking and other serious criminal offences. They are using weapons for protection, retribution and intimidation.
Every incident is being investigated and we are following up on all leads. Our investigators are working to hold those responsible accountable.
A Canada-wide Warrant has already been issued for the individual charged with the January 18th shooting homicide of Adam Perron, 21 years old on McLeod St.
I am confident in the officers carrying out these investigations and suppression activities as well as the leadership we have in place. These dedicated professionals care about this community and are committed to its safety and security.
As I noted above, this trend of criminals arming themselves with crime guns and openly using them is being seen in other major Canadian cities.
In Ottawa we saw 74 shootings in 2017, 68 in 2016 and 46 in 2015.
In Toronto they saw 392 shootings in 2017, 407 in 2016 and 288 in 2015.
Despite what some might say, there are no easy answers to this problem.
It’s not about flooding neighbourhoods and handing out traffic tickets to people who live there. That negatively impacts community relations and has little investigative value. It’s about targeting those criminal activities and the people engaged in them.
While this statement has focused on the enforcement strategies we have in place, we cannot lose sight of the need for prevention and measures to address root causes.
We must continue to work with the community to help identify those committing violence and to dissuade those who may be attracted to a lifestyle of gangs and criminality.
The perpetrators of this violence and their associates are primarily young men. It’s important that we reach these people before they join this lifestyle and provide ways for those already involved in this criminal activity to leave it behind. The reality is that there are no good outcomes for these individuals.
In all crimes we investigate, we need witnesses and people with information to come forward.
You can contact the police or Crime Stoppers (1-800-222-8477). As of February 1st Crime Stoppers will be guaranteeing the maximum cash reward of $2,000 for tips leading to the seizure of crime guns. The campaign runs until April 30 and provides a safe and anonymous means for people to assist police in removing these guns from our community.
Our call to the community is not just about tips.
We must also all continue to support the longer-term work already underway with the City of Ottawa Street Violence and Gang Strategy.
This strategy is being led through Crime Prevention Ottawa and involves important partnerships with organizations like the John Howard Society, Ottawa Community Housing and our local School Boards.
The community focus needs to continue to be on early intervention to help those young people avoid this dangerous path.
(This statement was provided to media at 3:15pm on Thursday, February 1st, 2018)