Ottawa’s 49 shootings last year set an undesirable historical record, being the city’s highest level of gunplay ever, but Ottawa Police Services say that the best response is to stay the course.
Ottawa’s first shooting of 2015 on Jan. 10 was gang related. The victim was last reported to be in critical condition.
Staff Sgt. Ken Bryden, of the Direct Action Response Team, part of the Ottawa Police Service Guns and Gangs division, gave a presentation on Jan. 26 to the police services board on Ottawa gangs. Several city councillors attended the presentation.
During the meeting, Bryden assured councillors that the gang issue was under control and that resources were already being properly allocated within the OPS to help curb the growth of gangland violence.
On Jan. 12, Mayor Jim Watson directed his senior staff to find more money for “gang exit strategies.” The exact amount has yet to be disclosed. Since then, there have been no confirmed talks of what resources will be committed to the OPS.
The OPS is dedicated to making exit strategies – the process of reintegrating adult gang members back into society – a priority. This is a key aspect of the OPS’s two-pronged approach to fighting gang violence: suppression and prevention. Suppression with police boots on the ground and prevention via a number of different community resources and outreach programs.
“We’ll have those resources in play and on the ground for whatever is necessary to combat (gangs),” Bryden said in an interview.
He added that the police were not certain whether this increase in shootings was simply an aberration or indicative of a developing trend. There were only 30 shootings in 2013. Crime in Ottawa has dropped by over 30 per cent in the last 10 years, according to a Fraser Institute study released in September.
Gloucester-Southgate Coun. Diane Deans was present at the Jan. 26 meeting.
“I’ve seen the good work of the police,” she said, having seen a drop in gang activity in her ward. She added that the city has a“less critical problem” today than in the past, but it still needs the resources in place to address the problem, she said.
Amazingly, of the 49 shootings in Ottawa, only one resulted in a death – the killing of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo during the downtown Ottawa attack at the National War Memorial and Parliament Hill by gunman Michael Zehaf-Bibeau. Of the remaining 48 shootings, Bryden attributed 85 per cent to gang violence. Of the seven homicides in Ottawa last year, none were directly gang related.
Bryden said these “shots (are) being fired to scare the competitor they have . . . (a) big beef with . . . to shoot to send a message without taking someone’s life. But a firearm is being discharged in a public area and once that projectile leaves that gun, you’ve lost control of it.”
Nancy Worsfold, executive director of Crime Prevention Ottawa, works closely with police in trying to intervene on a community level to stem the tide of gang members. She says the partners are seeing positive results from their community involvement, but need more funds and resources in order to better prevent and contain gangs. She also gave part of the presentation to council.
“Some services work really well for this family and not so well for that family,” she told Centretown News. “There’s a huge range of what’s needed and nothing is perfect.”
Echoing Watson, she said one of the areas of highest need was the exit strategy and reintegration for current gang members. Taking someone in his 20s from the gang lifestyle and reintegrating him back into the community as a law-abiding citizen is hugely difficult, she says. It often involves finding a new a source of income to replace the lost funds earned in illegal trade, finding a new social circle, leaving behind old habits and sometimes having to deal with addiction or mental illness.
There are almost a dozen different programs working within Ottawa, all with similar mandates and all loosely co-ordinated via the Ottawa Gang Strategy Steering Committee.
Many of these programs are based on after-school activities and helping at risk families. Youturn, based on the west end of Centretown, is leading a program aimed at helping the siblings of current gang members.
Executive director Kathy Neff explained that these younger siblings are considered to be at the highest risk of joining gangs.