Double murder: no arrest yet

In a short piece saying police are working hard but that there has been no arrest yet in the double murder in the Point earlier this week, TVA quotes retired SPVM inspector André Durocher about the 39 homicides this year. He says he’s struck by the prevalence of deadly shootings and blames the federal government. Note the subhead: Une année meurtrière à Montréal.

So far this year, there have been 39 homicides of which 18 were clearly described as shootings. In a few cases, bodies were found but the stories did not specify how the victims had been killed.

There were also several people wounded by gunfire and many episodes of gunshots heard with no victims turning up.

Not pretty, but not, I think, the worst numbers. But our police have learned that if they keep emphasizing how dreadful things are, they will get more money.

I was looking at the list of cities by size in North America. Montreal is the continent’s 8th largest city by population. Philadelphia, at #10, a city comparable in population, had 562 homicides in 2021 and San Antonio had 160.

Toronto, bigger than Montreal, had 117 homicides in 2021, and Winnipeg, considerably smaller, had 45.

Cities of comparable size in Mexico include Guadalajara with 529 and León with 816.

I’m not saying these numbers from other cities mean 39 killings is peachy. It isn’t. But let’s see it in proportion.