Greater Sudbury police propose dedicated homicide unit in response to troubling trend

The growing number of homicides in Greater Sudbury over the last several yearshas the city's police serviceproposing the establishment of a dedicated homicide unit.

According to Statistics Canada, in both 2017 and 2018, one homicide was reported eachyear. That number grew to three murders in 2019, five in 2020 and six in 2021.

As 2022drew to a close, police reported 10 homicides, with a cluster of murders taking place at the tail end of the year.

Barry Ornella, a detective sergeant with the police service, said recent trend has been troubling to watch.

"I grew up in this community, I've raised a family in this community, I have family here, I have friends here. It's not a number we should ever become comfortable with or make excuses for," Ornella said.

Ornella said six of the 10homicides over the last year were related to gun violence.

According to Sudbury police, out of the top 15 police services across the province, based on population size, Greater Sudbury ranks firstas having the highest violent crime severity index. This is the second year in a row that the city was ranked first.

Sudbury sits at 56 whencompared to the other326municipalities across Canada.

"When I started in the criminal investigations unit years ago, two homicides was a lot. Anything beyond that was considerable. So when we look at 10, not only 10 homicides but we look at shootings and instanceswhere firearms are being shot at houses, or places like malls, or unfortunately most recently in a hotel with other innocent people inside of it, it is concerning."

"When we're averaging one a month or even more, that's concerning."

Money, time and resources

Ornella said that homicide investigations tend to be complex and can require a lot of time and resources, which can have a taxing effect on the police service's ability to accomplish day-to-day tasks. He said that establishing a dedicated homicide unit would help to save money, time and resources.

"This unit will not only be responsible for investigating active homicide investigations but that also expands to cold cases, missing persons and that sort of thing. So there will never be a shortage of demand for that unit," he said.

At a Police Services Board meeting on Thursday,GreaterSudbury Police ChiefPaulPedersen said that establishing a homicide unit would also allow for the service to dedicate more time to missing persons cases.

"Through the MMIWG[Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls] recommendations, we have to take and should take a more serious look into missing persons, specifically in the area of Indigenous women and girls and [we]have to treat those all as potential foul play until we can show that they are otherwise."

"That's an investment in investigation and an investment in people," he said.

According to the proposal, the service would launch the unit with four officers assigned to investigate homicides.It would be part of a strategic staffing initiativethat would be implementedbetween 2023 and 2025..

Pedersen added that as part of this plan, the service would like to also includetwo more officers to its drug enforcement unit and another 18 officers to its patrol operations.