No apparent gang link to gun incidents, Regina police say
Based on what they’ve found so far, Regina police have no reason to link a spate of recent gun incidents to gangs, the service’s deputy chief said Wednesday.
“Not that we’re aware of” is how Dean Rae responded to questions about possible gang links to a weekend case in which four youths face 58 gun-related charges.
But he also told the monthly meeting of the Regina Board of Police Commissioners that “gang affiliations are really difficult to point to and articulate because a lot of the people involved in gang activity don’t tell us about who they’re involved with, and what’s going inside the actual crime.”
Conceding he can’t recall individuals facing more gun-related charges, Rae said police still are wondering “whether there’s some other events that they were responsible for too.”
With two other gun-related incidents last weekend, Rae acknowledged there’s been a trend of more gun crimes, a suspicion confirmed by police statistics.
They indicate there were 17 reports to police of guns — including pellet guns, BB guns and shotguns between June 18 and June 27. And from Jan. 1 until May 31, there were 31 incidents in which the presence of firearms was confirmed, versus only 27 in the same period last year.
In two incidents — on June 20 and June 22 — in which males were wounded by gunfire, no arrests have been made.
“We generally don’t talk about ongoing investigations, but I can assure you that we take these things very seriously ... it’s concerning for the public, as well as for the police service.” In other matters coming out of the commission’s meeting:
The Regina Police Service continues a push for hiring civilian and sworn members from target groups for diversity, with human resources manager Len Daniels reporting it has 25.6 per cent female members, 9.2 per cent aboriginal, 4.6 per cent persons with disabilities and 6.6 per cent visible minorities — versus goals of 48, 14, 12.4 and 11 per cent, respectively. But he added this plan could be hampered by competition for recruits from other arms of government and from the private sectors.
On the search for a new police chief to replaced Troy Hagen, who’s retiring, Mayor Michael Fougere said “there have been no interviews yet, but we’re getting on with that process.”
And asked where the next chief might come from, he said, “You never know: internal, external, across the country, it’s wide open. We’re looking for the best person.”