Charges laid in fewer than a third of Hamilton's recent shooting incidents

As Hamilton endures a surge of shootings where teens have been shot, people have died and bullets are fired into homes, police have laid charges in under a third of those incidents.

So far this year there have been 20 shootings in Hamilton, resulting in two deaths those of17-year-old Abdulla Hassan, who was found with a gunshot wound in a car in Dundas last week, and Cece Luppino, the son of mobster Rocco Luppino, who was gunned down in January.

Four months into 2019, that's already almost as many shootings as all of last year. So far, police have laid charges four times including the three teen boys who are charged with first-degree murder in Hassan's death.

Of the 25 shootings that happened in Hamilton in 2018, police have laid charges eight times. That means in the last 16 months, police have laid a charge 12 times out of 45 total shooting incidents.

Sometimes people are rushed to hospital in the wake of these shootings. Other times,bullets are fired at a car, or into someone's front door or window. Sometimes, all police have to go on is a 911 call reporting shots fired and some shell casings on the ground.

Deputy Chief Dan Kinsella told CBC News that this year, gun incidents have "taken on a life of their own" in Hamilton. Police are working diligently in an effort to make more arrests, he said.

"We would like to see a charge in every instance where a gun is discharged in the city," Kinsella said.

But that's difficult, police say, for a myriad of reasons. In cases where there's a victim, it's a little easier to gather evidence. But in cases where there's just a report of gunfire and some bullet casings like the city's most recent shooting, which happened in the east end on Sunday it's much trickier.

"Those are really tough to solve for investigators," said Kevin Bryan, a retired York police detective and policing instructor at Seneca College. Shell casings and bullets from scenes like those do get sent to the Centre of Forensic Sciences for testing, he said, but unless they can be matched to a gun previouslyused in another crime, it's difficult to connect them with any one person.

56 people arrested by new task force

Inresponse to the rise of gun violence in Hamilton, police have created what investigators are calling the "Make Safetask force," which is led by the gangs and weapons enforcement unit and is trying to make connections between shootings in the city.

To date, that task force has made 56 arrests, conducted 14 search warrants, and laid over 200 charges, Kinsella said. They have also seized 13 guns, three Tasers, and 105 rounds of ammo.

However, none of those charges directly relate to someone firing a gun in Hamilton. "But we continue to work on that," Kinsella said.

The other issue investigators face, he said, is in a lot of cases, shooting victims don't want to talk, leaving police with little to go on.

"The vast majority of these cases are targeted, and involve drugs, money, some sort of thing like that," he said. "The witnesses involved in those types of shootings tend to not be overly cooperative with us.

"At the end of the day, with the limited participation and cooperation, it makes it difficult to up those number of clearances, which is what we want to do. But that never falls off the table."

Sending a message

Other recent incidents in the city are likely intended to send a message like when two homes were shot up in Hamilton just 48 hours apart back in March. "When a house is shot up like that, that's sending a specific message to an individual," Bryan said.

Kinsella said incidents like those can often be gang related.

"What we're seeing is these interactions between gangs that are arguing over drugs, money, turf, whatever, and drugdealers who have a gun for protection. Someone steals their drugs, and then the gun comes out."

Still other shootings, like Luppino's death, are related to a spike in deaths linked to organized crime,which started when notorious mobster Angelo Musitano was repeatedly shot outside his suburban home in 2017.Those cases, Bryan says, are also notoriously difficult to solve though aHamilton man is facing murder charges in connection withMusitano's death, and two other suspects are now the subject of an international manhunt.

"When it's traditional organized crime, those are not easy," Bryansaid.

A handful of these incidents have also involved young offenders, which Kinsella says is "of great concern," considering these are "very gruesome acts." On top of Hassan's death, a16-year-old from Hamilton was charged in connection with a shooting that left another teen with serious injuries earlier this month.

"We're certainly mindful of it," Kinsellasaid. "It's just horrible."

adam.carter@cbc.ca