Gun violence | A very hot start to the year in Montreal

The Easter holiday was marked by four shooting incidents in Montreal, including a murder and an attempted murder. But this is not the first burst of violence this year in the metropolis. According to a compilation of The Pressthere have been, since the beginning of this year in Montreal, approximately twice as many events during which a firearm was discharged as for the same period in 2020 and 2021.

Daniel Renaud
The Press

According to our figures, between 1^er January and April 18, 44 shooting events occurred in the city, compared to 21 for the same period in 2020 and 24 for 2021.

Note, however, that our figures only include events that received media coverage, and they may differ from those compiled by the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM).

To compare with the previous two years, The Press used tables produced by the National Application Support Team firearms law (ENSALA), headed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and these results may also differ slightly from those of the SPVM.

Since the beginning of this year, there have been 20 events in Montreal where shots were fired without causing a victim, 18 attempted murders, 5 homicides and 1 robbery with a gunshot.

For the month of April alone, in 17 days, there have been 5 shooting events without a victim, 4 attempted murders, 2 homicides and 1 robbery with shooting.

These 12 events represent 27% of all incidents in which a firearm has been discharged at least once since the beginning of the year in Montreal.

The long Easter holiday was particularly violent, with two shooting incidents without victims, an attempted murder and a murder in just two days, Friday and Saturday.

According to our information, several of the shootings that have occurred since the beginning of the year in Montreal are linked to conflicts between cliques or street gangs.

The police fear a hot spring, especially since there would also be tensions in the organized crime world, in particular within the mafia.

It should be noted that the Government of Quebec launched the Centaur strategy in 2021, overseen by the Sûreté du Québec, to combat the proliferation of firearms observed more particularly since the end of 2019.

The SPVM also relies on its Multidisciplinary Firearms Teams (EMAF) and its Narcotics Sections, headed by the Organized Crime Division, to fight against this scourge.

More matches

The increase in shooting events in recent years in Montreal can also be seen at the Laboratory of Forensic Sciences and Forensic Medicine (LSJML) in Quebec, where the number of handguns received is increasing and should be around 1000 for the year 2021.

Another impact of the proliferation of weapons: ballistics experts are finding more and more matches between recovered casings and projectiles and seized firearms.

Each casing, projectile or firearm seized at a crime scene is analyzed by laboratory experts – currently with a delay of around six months due to a lack of staff – and compared in databases so that experts can make connections between them.

“Before 2020, we made maybe a dozen links a year between a projectile or a casing, and a firearm. But with gunshot events on the rise, there are more casings and projectiles coming into the lab that initially weren’t associated with a firearm. But I can tell you that in 2020, 2021 and 2022, we really see an increase in the correspondence carried out in the laboratory”, describes Manuel Tousignant, expert at LSJML.

According to Manuel Tousignant and his colleagues, more and more casings are fired by the same weapon. They are sometimes found at three or even four different crime scenes.

The expert claims that the most popular handgun among criminals is the 9mm Luger.

Polymer-80s, made in the United States, which arrive in a template and to which must be added a metal breech and barrel, are increasingly seized in Quebec, but accounted for only 4.6% of all weapons. fists analyzed in the laboratory during the first six months of 2021.

Mr. Tousignant says that even if there are a few more handguns made using 3D technology in Quebec, the proportion remains “minimal”.

To reach Daniel Renaud, dial 514 285-7000, ext. 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the postal address of The Press.