THUNDER BAY — Thunder Bay will undoubtedly be the murder capital of Canada once again, but the 15 homicides are just the tip of the violent crime iceberg in the city, says acting Police Chief Dan Taddeo.
Violent crime in Thunder Bay is through the roof, skyrocketing above similar sized communities in Ontario, such as Kingston and Barrie.
It’s left Taddeo’s department threadbare at times, with officers and investigators being pulled in from other critical areas, such as traffic control, to secure crime scenes, canvass for witnesses and track down and arrest suspects.
Taddeo’s big concern is there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight.
While last year’s 15 homicides might seem like an anomaly, four more than the previous record of 11 confirmed homicides set in 2014, the root causes of the problem aren’t going away.
Thunder Bay is awash in drug addiction and ripe for the picking by ruthless gangsters from southern Ontario, who view the city as a narcotics cash cow.
Ties to the drug trade were directly linked to six of last year’s killings, but substance abuse was a likely factor in several more, so called-crimes of passion fuelled by addiction and poverty.
“Just due to the size of the Thunder Bay Police Service, serious crimes, whether it’s homicides, attempted homicides, aggravated assaults or the like, they require what we refer to as an all-hands-on-deck approach,” Taddeo said.
“We rely on many of our other units, whether it’s primary response or other specialized units, they basically collapse in order to support the investigation. There’s a lot of validity when you hear a lot of work needs to be done in the first 48 hours-plus. That’s not a myth. That’s a fact, so you do require a lot of human resources.”
At one point in 2022, police were dealing with seven homicides over a seven-week period, five of them occurring in May alone.
“You can appreciate that our numbers are representative of a city — specifically our homicides and crimes of violence — are more akin to a city of 500,000 or one million people,” Taddeo said. “And with urban issues. That’s not us. This police service is based on an economy of scale. Our comparators are tending to two or three homicides (a year). This cannot be our normal, because the design of our police service, or the funding, isn’t based on that.”
Taddeo said the fact the city’s population is likely under-counted by tens of thousands adds to the problem — and doesn't get included in the funding model — as does a seemingly revolving-door policy in the criminal justice system.
The acting chief didn’t hesitate to take aim at the courts, saying dangerous people are being bailed out, only to commit more crimes in Thunder Bay. Sentencing guidelines are also not locking up dangerous criminals long enough, he said.
“What’s frustrating is when we’re re-arresting people who have been released on conditions that include not to be in Thunder Bay, unless for a court appearance. They view the justice system, really it’s not taken seriously, and it’s my opinion that the broad-brush approach of the judicial system, specifically bail, needs to be re-examined.”
The only good news, says Insp. Jeremy Pearson, who heads the Thunder Bay Police homicide investigation team, is that police have been highly successful apprehending suspects. Arrests have been made in 13 of 15 of last year’s killings, and only five of 60 confirmed homicide cases between 2016 and the end of 2022 have yet to be cleared.
Pearson said the work being done to solve the case and put away murderers doesn’t mean he’s expecting things to get better anytime soon.
“When I look at the situation in the city, the level of crime, the level of violence, I absolutely acknowledge and believe these are serious issues that need to be addressed on all fronts, not only in terms of the response of the Thunder Bay Police Service, but any additional resources that can enhance our ability to address of those crimes, but also at the root cause of crime at the community level,” Pearson said.
Many of those resources are already in place, but they too need support, financial and personnel-wise.
