Rural Manitoba close to doubling average number of homicides in 2024

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A significant spike in rural Manitoba homicides is putting strain on RCMP resources and on the mental health of officers being forced to deal with increasingly disturbing and traumatic incidents in all corners of rural Manitoba.

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On Thursday, the Winnipeg Sun spoke with RCMP superintendent Rob Lasson — the officer in charge of major crime services, as RCMP recently reported the 56th homicide in their coverage area in 2024 — as we near the end of the calendar year.

“It’s a significant increase, so yes we are concerned as a police organization, and we are mobilizing our resources to meet this increased pressure,” Lasson said.

RCMP reported a total of 30 homicides and three suspicious deaths in 2023, while 38 homicides were reported in 2022.

“Typically our resources are planned to address 30 to 35 homicides a year throughout rural Manitoba,” Lasson said. “So when we reach numbers encroaching on 60, that’s almost doubling the amount of workload for our membership.”

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And with RCMP servicing a massive area across southern and northern Manitoba, Lasson said one of the biggest challenges is getting officers and resources to some of the communities where they are needed.

“In Manitoba, as you can understand, our travel requirements into remote communities are very challenging,” Lasson said. “Just issues around that alone take up a lot of officer’s time and create a lot of stress. There are costs involved, and there’s a lot of planning around things like, where am I going to stay, and what am I going to eat?”

He added the work often requires investigators to be away from their homes and families for weeks at a time.

“With recent deployments several members have been away from home and that creates stress,” Lasson said. “It’s hard on the officers, the officers have families and they have personal lives as well.”

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Homicides in rural Manitoba have included several well-publicized and disturbing incidents this year, including a mass killing in Carman in February of a 30-year-old woman, a 17-year-old girl, a six-year-old girl, a four-year-old boy, and a 2½-month-old girl.

RCMP also reported in November they were investigating the death of a toddler whose remains were discovered in a rural Manitoba barn in the RM of Grahamdale in June. Police said the girl would have been between one and two years old when she died, and they were investigating her death as a homicide.

Lasson said they also keep a close eye on the mental health and well-being of officers dealing with scenes and situations that would be disturbing for most.

“That’s one of my main jobs in my current role, to make sure to monitor and address mental health issues among our officers,” he said.

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According to Lasson, there are also concerns among local RCMP and police forces across western Canada about what many see as a growing trend in cases of violent crime and intimate partner violence.

“I can say the trend of violent crime is increasing in Manitoba, and in talking to colleagues it’s on the rise across western Manitoba, especially post-pandemic,” Lasson said.

“With the current economic stress people are under, and numerous things post-pandemic, there is an increase in those types of files.”

He said they will now monitor to see if Manitoba’s unusually high homicide numbers in 2024 were an anomaly, or part of a growing trend.

“Police will now assess the stats at the end of the year and into 2025, and start assessing so that we’ll have more of an idea if it’s an anomaly or not.”

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Should the increase in homicides continue, Lasson said that could force RCMP to reconsider how to use some of their resources.

“We can always use more police officers, the factor is how we use our police officers and how we deploy them, and coupled with that is, what do we prioritize? Lasson said.

“We always prioritize the highest jeopardy investigations, and right now homicides are a priority.”

— Dave Baxter is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of the Winnipeg Sun. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.

Have thoughts on what’s going on in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada or across the world? Send us a letter to the editor at wpgsun.letters@kleinmedia.ca

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