MONTREAL — The 2012 statistics, made public Wednesday by the Montreal police, list separately the number of murders related to non-Italian organized crime (seven) and murders related to street gangs (six), the motives ranked second and third on the list.
Last year was also deadly for the Italian organized crime syndicate, with five alleged members of the Mafia slain.
An incident at a small café in St. Léonard on Dec. 22, for example, was believed to be related to the Mafia in Montreal. One man was killed and another was wounded when a masked gunman fired on them just after 2 p.m.
Montreal police Commander Ian Lafrenière says these crimes have been the hardest to solve.
While overall the police managed to close 17 out of 35 murder files last year, only two of 18 murders related to organized or street gang crime have been solved, Lafrenière said.
"These people don't talk a lot," Lafrenière said, "so their crimes are very difficult to resolve."
By comparison, police were able to solve 10 out of 10 murders related to conjugal violence, four out of four murders resulting from other sorts of conflicts, and one of three murders for which the motive remains unknown.
Lafrenière was quick to assure the public however, that the Montreal police will keep up the pressure on organized crime in 2013, following up on their pre-Christmas raid on four residences in Laval believed to be linked to drug trafficking. "They will be seeing more of us in 2013," he said.
The total number of homicides for both 2012 and 2011 was the same. But Lafrenière points out that homicides in the city have been steadily decreasing over the last two decades. The average number of homicides per year over the last decade was 40, while the average over the last 20 years was 50 homicides per year.
"One homicide is one too many, but we're not talking about big numbers here," Lafrenière said. "Is (the number decreasing) because more people are surviving (the attempt) and getting out of hospital, or because we now have more pressure on organized crime and better technology, for DNA analysis, for example? We can't pinpoint exactly why the numbers are coming down."
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