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There was a time when that rather silly word “yahoo” was synonymous with Calgary.
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No longer. Today a more appropriate exclamation would be “shots fired!”
Perhaps city council, when not overburdened with the future fate of leaf blowers or deciding which of our feathered friends best encapsulates civic virtue, might consider using this phrase when updating those road signs welcoming visitors to town.
(Hey, we can hardly keep urging newcomers to be part of the energy, not when they’re nervously entering our climate emergency city.)
Certainly “shots fired” gets everyone’s attention and it’s becoming increasingly prevalent when scanning the morning headlines these days.
Of course, there are likely a few on council more troubled that some Calgarians working in this current environment, where bullets fly with abandon, still adorn their uniforms with a thin blue line patch. Everyone has priorities, I guess.
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Still, there’s a sea change afoot. Yes, the seemingly constant criticism of our local police service has dialled down of late while demands to defund the cops have vanished. This often happens when handguns, drugs and gangland turf wars trump arcane chatter over identity politics along with arguments about officers refusing vaccination jabs.
Because, when the body count rises, most citizens suddenly realize they couldn’t care less if our cops all don bright-green “Kiss me, I’m Irish” hats, as long as they catch those responsible for gunning down fellow Calgarians and restore some semblance of sanity to city streets.
And, right now the death toll is indeed jumping. So far this year, we’ve had 53 shootings, twice last year’s rate, with seven of them proving fatal. So, yes, perhaps a bit more empathy and a heck more respect are due our cops who face working in such a dangerous environment.
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Of course, to some, catching the bad guys isn’t the real issue. No, we need to get to the root of the violence.
Ward 5 Coun. Raj Dhaliwal believes these shootings need examining through a socio-economic and cultural lens.
“We need to look at the root cause of why people are pulling these triggers,” he asks. “What’s forcing them, what’s taking them to that threshold where they have no other choice but to pull that trigger?”
Excuse me, but this isn’t eastern Ukraine with the massed Russian army at your township’s border, so it’s difficult to believe anyone in Calgary is actually forced to pull a trigger, no matter what socio-economic climate they endure.
Anyhow, pulling the trigger is simply a final act. The real question is why someone sticks a loaded handgun in his waistband before going out for the evening. Because, once that fateful decision is made, events that follow often flow seamlessly downhill, ending with someone’s lifeblood draining away as a tense dispatch call of “shots fired” echoes in police cruisers citywide.
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(As an aside, I once had a handgun pulled on me, some 37 years ago in a sleazy Edmonton bar. Perhaps some might find it surprising, but the thought of asking the person holding the gun if he’d had a particularly stressful upbringing never crossed my mind.)
So, why then are some young men drawn to such violence? Having it tough growing up is hardly the answer, otherwise the bodies would be stacked 10-deep in the morgue.
No, the ingredients are standard. The lure of easy money through the lucrative drug trade, peer pressure to join neighbourhood gangs and the likelihood of not being caught. (Oh, and the ludicrous ease with which anyone can get their paws on an illegal handgun.)
The cops understand this. They know the best response isn’t simply to return fire or stop and search every young man after midnight. The most effective weapon is the co-operation of those in the neighbourhoods where those shooters reside.
People often know more than they willingly share with police and until that changes no amount of re-arranging deck chairs on the socio-economic deck of this particular Titanic will make a blind bit of difference.
Chris Nelson is a regular columnist for the Calgary Herald.
Nelson: 'Shots fired' fast becoming Calgary's signature tune - Calgary Herald
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