Thompson had as many homicides in 2022 as it did over the previous four years combined.
The year’s total of five people who were killed by someone else is also 67 per cent higher than it has been in any single year over the past 10 years, according to RCMP reports to mayor and council dating back to 2016.
No homicides were recorded in Thompson in 2021, while there was one in 2020 and two each in 2019 and 2018.
2016 and 2017 were the most recent years in which there were more than two people killed by others in Thompson, with three homicides in each of those years. In 2013 and 2014, there were no homicides in the city.
Arrests were made in all five of last year’s homicides, which occurred in March, May, June, July and October. Second-degree murder charges were laid in four* of the killings, with the alleged perpetrators including a 25-year-old man, a 44-year-old man and a 15-year-old male. A 30-year-old man was charged with manslaughter in the May killing. The victims ranged in age from 30 to 60 and at least two of them died as a result of being stabbed.
Contributing factors in the homicides included drugs, gangs, and domestic violence, Thompson RCMP detachment officer-in-charge Insp. Damon Werrell told council’s committee of the whole meeting on Jan. 3, when he updated them on crime statistics for November.
The large number of homicides also led to significant overtime, between investigators and crime scene security, Werrell said.
Aside from the unusually high number of killings, many types of crime were down in Thompson over the first 11 months of the year. Drug trafficking and drug possession calls were 51 per cent lower compared to the first 11 months of 2021, while sexual assaults were down 13 per cent and domestic assaults down seven per cent. Thefts over and under $5,000 increased by 31 per cent compared to January through November of 2021 and residential and business break-and-enters were up 15 per cent.
The total volume of calls the Thompson RCMP detachment responded to through the end of November was down by 15 per cent compared to same period the previous year.
Werrell said some crime categories can fluctuate a great deal from year to year or month to month based on the actions of even a single offender.
“One person can really make a difference sometimes,” he said.
The inspector also said that many calls to police are linked to repeat offenders that officers deal with numerous times.
“A large number of them probably,” he said in a response to a question from Coun. Duncan Wong, though he could not give a precise percentage.
* This article has been updated to reflect that second-degree murders were laid in four of Thompson's five 2022 homicides, not three as originally stated.
