With more than half the year still to go, a shooting death Monday sent the number of homicides in Winnipeg in 2019 above the city’s annual average and the total for all of 2018, which was 22.
The shooting of a man outside John M. King School is the 23rd homicide this year in Winnipeg and a spokesperson for police laid out what kind of resources are required for such investigations.
The comments come after Winnipeg’s police chief said the “unusually violent year” has strained resources and homicide investigations have led officers to work more than 9,000 hours of overtime.
How many officers does it take to investigate a homicide?
While police couldn’t comment specifically on how many officers were assigned to the investigation Monday, Const. Rob Carver provided ballpark figures of how many it would generally take to deal with such a case, explaining that general patrol officers are usually the first to arrive on scene.
“They ask for back up almost immediately, it’s apparent they’ve got a shooting. We need the area secured,” he said, adding that because the incident fell at the start of the day, officers who were finishing night shifts may have had to wait for day shift officers to take over.
“And night shift people can’t just go home and they’re very quickly going to be on overtime.”
Carver said six or seven patrol units with two officers each would likely be present along with a street supervisor. Cadets may also help secure scenes and K9 units may be called in to help track evidence.
He said the dog unit generally works alongside another general patrol unit for support, and if the Air1 police helicopter is available, it would be used to survey the area.
Carver said there’s also a core team of officers tasked with the investigation.
“Six, eight, easily. Of actual investigators,” he explained. “Not including the people in charge of them, who are directing it, much like the captain of a ship.”
Carver said a team of 4 to 6 forensic officers would also be called in and later in the day more officers would be sent out to canvass for potential video footage from businesses or residences.
“That is manpower intensive,” he said.
“It would be easy to say that we’ve got mid-thirties in the number of all officers involved in this incident and that can go up and down depending on where the investigation moves,” he said.
“And those officers, some of them not necessarily homicide, but all of the uniform officers were doing something else before this started and that’s currently not something they’re able to do now.”
Carver emphasized the importance of immediacy with homicide investigations, saying police must strike a delicate balance when determining what work can be delayed. He said he met with the homicide unit Monday.
“I didn’t see anyone worn out, but I can tell you that it takes a toll and the chief alluded to that, and you can only do so much eventually.”
Carver said a behavioural health unit is available to assist officers and that they keep an eye on one another to spot signs of burnout.
“The last thing you want is an investigator who maybe is feeling overworked and could maybe miss something.”