Record year for homicides defines crime in Saskatoon in 2019

There is little mystery surrounding the city's record-breaking year in homicides.

Sixteen people lost their lives under violent, suspicious circumstances. These homicides were many things, but they were largely not whodunits.

Police arrested suspects in 14 of the 16 deaths. The previous high water mark for homicides was 13 in 2000.

And while each case has its own unique set of facts, there are common elements to all the deaths. Addictions, gangs and geography all figured to various degrees in the homicides.

"No, we had no random homicides," said Saskatoon Police chief Troy Cooper.

"And in 2019 we had people who were using firearms spontaneously, and you'll see that when there's drug use, especially in street gangs, but not randomly."

Cooper says the city's gang scene is an element in at least one third of the killings this year. Gang members killed each other over turf, market and perceived slights.

He is not shocked that a high proportion of the violence happened in the Pleasant Hill core neighbourhood.

"It's not particularly surprising to us because the area where those homicides occurred is an area where we're already challenged by violent offending and by high call volumes to begin with," he said.

"And so the fact that we saw more violence there is not something new to us."

At least one-third of the homicide suspects are under the age of 18. While troubling, Cooper said this is not unusual either.

"Well I think that the fact that they're involved in homicides may be an anomalous sort of thing, but young people involved in crime or being accused of crime or even being victims of crime is not anomalous at all," he said.

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"We spend most of our time dealing with people who are between the ages of 14 and 24. They're most often the victim, most often the accused, and so for us to see violent actions or drug use or gang use or gang involvement, pardon me, in that age group is not it's not surprising to us."

Cooper says it's difficult to say whether this year of double digit homicides is the new norm for the city.

Suspects are now commonly armed with guns. Meth continues contribute to property and personal crime, and the fundamental issues of poverty and homelessness remain in place.

But Cooper cautions that the difference between a homicide and an aggravated assault can simply be luck. A handful of this year's homicides, for instance, could have been assaults – save for the angle and timing of the fatal blow.

"What we saw was an increase in in the use of weapons, increase in firearm use, increase in violent offending rate across the board," he said.

"We attribute a lot of that to the, to the impact of addictive drugs like crystal meth that not only has an addiction component, it has a paranoia, mental health, a psychotic component to it as well."