OPP: Homicide rates on the rise

Members of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) led 42 murder investigations in 2018 – Seven more such investigations than the year before.

The prevalence of murder investigations is at “a level not seen since the 52 cases in 2010,” the OPP said in a press release on Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, which also stated that six of the homicides in 2018 were investigated on behalf of other jurisdictions.

Despite efforts to reduce the inventory of available guns, a firearm was the primary cause of death in 18 OPP death investigations. That number is higher than the previous two years combined, OPP said – firearms were the cause of death in 10 investigations in 2017, and in six investigations in 2016 – and the 18 deaths by firearm in 2018 add up to seven more such deaths than in the record year of 2010.

“To deliberately take another life is the most personal affront to public safety that we know,” said Deputy Commissioner Rick Barnum, Provincial Commander of OPP Investigations and Organized Crime.

“It is distressing to see an increase in the number of murders being committed in communities throughout Ontario.”