THUNDER BAY — Hundreds of firearms have been taken into custody by investigators during the course of 2024.
Last year, through both front-line and intelligence investigations and more, TBPS (Thunder Bay Police Service) collected 267 authentic firearms.
This is a huge rise compared to the 139 guns seized in 2023 — a 92 per cent increase.
Numbers from Statistics Canada reveal that firearms-related crimes continue to increase in the city.
In 2022, 40 gun-related incidents were reported to police in Thunder Bay, a rate of 32incidents per 100,000 residents. That represents a 75 per cent increase compared to the average annual rate of 18 incidents per 100,000 people between 2012 and 2021.
In March 2024, police offered a show-and-tell of sorts to exhibit some of the authentic and replica firearms that officers have seized, including air pistols, pellet guns and an authentic concealed gun that looks like a cellphone.
"We've been fairly vocal for years about the increase of firearms attached to drug investigations, so we won't sugarcoat it. The crime guns and the ensuing violence and the elevated level of concern that poses not only for the public but also for our officers as they're doing their job and having regular interactions," Detective Inspector Jeremy Pearson, deputy chief of administration, told Newswatch.
Without speaking on any incident in particular, Pearson remarked that since many drug investigations encompass a certain level of risk, officers are prepared to encounter dangerous weapons, in particular guns.
Many of the Service's drug investigations have yielded high-volume, high-quantity of drugs, to which there is "significant monetary value attached to those substances and therefore significant risks" for those involved in suspected illegal activities.
Pearson added that "the fact that (guns) are present on the streets and that they're being seized during interactions with our primary response units that are simply responding to calls, they're doing active public enforcement, just shows that the firearms are out there. That's a concern for the public, for the community, and for officers themselves."
While a significant number of firearms are seized during the course of criminal investigations, police also take custody of weapons through non-criminal circumstances. These include firearms that have been abandoned, voluntarily surrendered to law enforcement, or inherited after the death of a registered owner when no eligible individual is available to assume legal possession.
The veteran officer called the 92 per cent increase in firearms seized from 2023 to 2024 "alarming".
He spoke of the inherent risks that officers must presume when responding to calls and during investigations, and that officers must act accordingly if there is a belief that a deadly weapon is present.
"When presented with a threat, an officer has to respond at the appropriate level for that perceived threat.
"When you add to that the fact that we are aware that in this community gun violence is a real and legitimate threat, that adds to the legitimacy of a perceived threat, even if in the final analysis the firearm itself turns out to be a replica."
