Violent crimes climb in Winnipeg but all other categories show drop, new statistics say

Violent crimes like assaults, threats and abductions are on the rise in Winnipeg, and the homicide rate is outpacing the five-year average, according to a new report from the police service.

Gun-related calls for service increased by 15 per centyear-over-year between 2020 and 2021, and 27 per cent over the past five years.

Butall other broad crime categories property crimes,drug crimes, traffic crimes and other crimes have decreased year-over-year between 2020 and 2021, according to the Winnipeg Police Service annual statistical report, releasedWednesday.

Despite that,police Chief Danny Smyth said he tends to focuson the violent crime category.

"That's the stuff that shakes up the community," he told host Marcy Markusain a Wednesday morning interview with CBC's Information Radio.

"I've been doing this job for over 30 years and so I've seen the cycles go up and down, and right now we seem to be trending up."

That appears to be continuingso farin 2022, Smyth noted.

"Just since July 1 of this year, we've attended over 50 incidents that have involved knives and have involved violence. So that's alarming."

The report says property crime, though, changed "significantly" in 2021 withfewer reports of shoplifting, particularly in liquor stores. That comes after Manitoba Liquor Marts installed anti-theft measures following a spike in thefts in 2019.

However, there was a marked and sustained increase in theft of vehicle accessories, most notably catalytic converters.

Hate crimes spiked by 46.2 per cent in 2021 over 2020, with 38 incidents.

Black people were the greatest target in terms of ethnicity, with eight reportedincidents, while in terms of religion, Jews were most targeted, also with eight incidents reported, according to the police statistics.

There was a slight increase in youth-involved crime involving violence in 2021 over the previous year, driven by a69.2 per cent surge in aggravated assaults. Robberies, though, were down37.2 per cent and sexual assaults dropped by 21.6 per cent.

Property crimes involving youth also dropped, with break-ins, car thefts and shoplifting all down between 24 and 67 per cent, according to the report.The only increase was in arson, which went up by 40 per cent over 2020.

Overall, the youth crime trend has decreased in the past five years, from 2,312 incidents in 2016 to 1,101 in 2021.

Not an easy fix: WPS

Despite the improvement,the statistics say Winnipeg has the highest numbers of violent crimes in large cities across thePrairies.

Winnipeg's violent crime severity index calculated based on volume of crime and the degree of seriousness is 173.3, up five per cent.

Comparatively, Calgary's is78.3, Edmonton's is127.4, Saskatoon's is137.5, Regina's is135.7. All of those have decreased from the prior year.

Addressing the issues is not an easy fix, saidBonnie Emerson, the superintendent of community engagement for the Winnipeg Police Service.

Social conditions associated to addictions, mental health, and homelessness were exacerbated during the pandemic.

"We know that there's contributing factors and that this is acomplex problem. The challenge is, people want one simple answer," she toldInformation Radio.

While enforcement is needed in some situations, "not everything needs to be, nor can it be, driven by the police," she said.

Some things require a strategic change andtime to form specialized units, like the service's anti-gang and gun strategy, or co-operative efforts with other community agencies, Smyth said.

"But a lot of them were interrupted during the pandemic so we're trying to re-establish that," he said.

In other cases, things can be done quickly, he added.

"The Forks was a good example of that," he said, referring to the response to a recent series ofcrimes at the popular gathering site near the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers.

"We established some additionalpresence down there with foot patrols on the weekend to try to address that," Smythsaid.

"We've adapted our response to meet some of the more urgent things that are occurring. We've been through cycles like this before, and we'll get through this one as well."

Smyth'taken aback' bycriticism

Smythsaid he is shocked by the reaction to comments he made last week about the violence at The Forks. LastFriday,he said that violence"is not new," and that calls for service to The Forks arein line with past trends and relatively small in theoverall picture of crime in Winnipeg.

He also implied the media is partly to blame for sensationalizing the incidents.

Winnipeg Police Chief Danny Smyth on crime rates in the city

2 years ago

Duration 2:31

Winnipeg's chief of police says there is no easy fix when it comes to the high violent crime numbers in our city. Chief Danny Smythe talks about the importance of community when it comes to finding a solution.

Some community leaders,the police unionand Premier Heather Stefansonsuggested Smyth is trying to normalize the violence.

Stefansontweeted Tuesday that she was "very concerned with the comments from Winnipeg police chief on recent crime events."

In a later news release, she said she had spoken with police union head Moe Sabourin, and "we both agreed the incidents cannot be the new normal in Winnipeg."

On Wednesday, Smyth said he was "taken aback a little bit" by the comments fromStefanson, whowas in British Columbia meeting with the country's other premiers. He saidhe looks forward to "the opportunity for discussion" to address her concerns.

He also said his comments from last week were misconstrued.

The police service has been"sounding the alarm" for years on the factors contributing to violence, raising it regularly in the media and to the policeboard, said Smyth.

"That's what I was talking about. This is not normal and I don't ... think people should characterize it as normal," he said.

"I can never predict how someone is going to take my comments."