THUNDER BAY - With a record number of homicides set this year following the latest shooting death on Brodie Street South last week, members of the Thunder Bay Police Service say the number of violent incidents in the city is troubling.
“It is a source of concern for the public as a whole and it's a source of concern for the department,” said Det. Insp. Jeremy Pearson with the Thunder Bay Police Service.
The shooting death of 24-year-old Michael Park of Toronto on Oct. 7 at a residence on Brodie Street South is the 12th homicide of the year, surpassing the previous record of 11 set in 2014.
Greg Casimir Meshake, 40, of Thunder Bay, was arrested on Sunday and charged with first-degree murder in connection to Park’s death.
A 16-year-old Blind River youth was arrested Tuesday evening by the Ontario Provincial Police in Blind River and has also been charged with first-degree murder.
Police were first called to the area of Brodie Street and Arthur Street in the downtown south core in the late afternoon of Oct. 7 for reports of gunfire.
A large area of the downtown was contained as the scene was secured before several buildings were searched and cleared.
According to Pearson, the homicide was related to the illicit drug trade in the city and was targeted, not random. However, the nature of the incident is a serious cause for concern.
“This is an incident that does cause concern to us and I believe the community as a whole,” he said. “The nature of the incident itself, the fact that it was in public, in the middle of the afternoon in broad daylight, and that it did involve a firearm, those are all elements that cause us significant concern and we take it very seriously and it is alarming to the public as a whole.”
The Brodie Street location is also known to police and was the scene of another homicide in November 2018 when 35-year-old Geoff Corbeil was shot and later pronounced dead in hospital.
Pearson said serious incidents occurring in a particular location represents an intersection of a multitude of societal, community, and law enforcement issues.
“From an enforcement perspective, we will apply enforcement attention and observation to areas that are high crime or cause concern for public safety. But we also have to be cognizant of the fact that there are social issues at play in some these areas,” he said.
“I don’t like the term problem area because I think that simplifies a very complex social situation and an intersection of a variety of community concerns that takes an entire community to address.”
And while 2022 has seen a record number of homicides in the city, which involves significant resources from police to respond to and investigate, Pearson said there is a source of pride in the work being done by the service.
“These are exceptionally challenging investigations. The sheer volume of resources to contain the area. The work that is being done by this department is a matter of great pride for me,” he said.
“The work being done by all the facets of the criminal investigation branch who have all pitched in to all of these investigations all year. These are resource intensive investigations, but for me the point of pride is they are being accomplished, they continue to be advanced and coming to successful resolutions.”
The Brodie Street homicide investigation is ongoing and Pearson said other individuals are being sought at this time. Anyone with any information that could assist investigators is urged to contact police if they have not been spoken to yet.
“If there are residents in that area or people passing through that area with dash cam or video surveillance at their residence who have not yet spoken to police, we ask that they contact us,” Pearson said. “We are interested in a fairly narrow time frame, Oct. 7 [from] 3:15 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. is the timeframe we are seeking at this time.”
