KEVIN MARTIN: Gun violence growing concern in Calgary

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Hopefully the harsh, eight-year sentence handed Calgarian Samuel Deverze over his involvement in a daytime shootout in a populous downtown community won’t fall on the deaf ears of like-minded criminals.

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Justice Brian Stevenson last week agreed with Crown prosecutor Rose Greenwood that such a sentence was necessary in an attempt to deter dangerous gunplay in Calgary and beyond.

The Calgary Court of Justice judge, who recently celebrated his 50th anniversary on the bench, has seen the city’s gun violence increase exponentially in that time.

And Stevenson said it’s a problem that continues to grow.

“The use of firearms — particularly prohibited or restricted handguns — in Alberta and Calgary — is epidemic,” Stevenson noted.

“Hardly a week goes by without a report of another shooting incident having taken place. Some are related to domestic violence; some are related to gang violence; others arise in ‘score-settling’ situations; often drugs and alcohol are involved.”

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And while no one was hurt in the gunplay between Deverze and two unidentified males who originally shot at him from a van in a Beltline-area back alley on a Sunday afternoon, innocent bystanders could have been, and in other cases have been, seriously injured or killed.

Just two days before Stevenson sentenced Deverze on March 22, 2020, offences that included discharging a firearm with intent to wound, 19-year-old Jordan Leinen was killed in a drive-by attack in which police say she was not the intended target.

Leinen was in a vehicle travelling westbound on the 32 Ave. N.E. overpass above Deerfoot Tr. when an unknown vehicle, or vehicles, fired several rounds into the 2008 Acura MDX, fatally wounding her.

It was just one more example of the type of firearm violence that has become all too commonplace on streets in Calgary and elsewhere in Alberta and Canada.

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“The problem is not unique to Alberta: it has become a nationwide phenomenon,” Stevenson lamented.

He cited an Ontario case which discussed gun violence in Canada’s largest city.

“Death by firearms in public places in Toronto plague this city and must be deterred, denounced and stopped,” the Calgary judge quoted from the earlier ruling.

“Only the imposition of exemplary sentences will serve to deter criminals from arming themselves with handguns.”

Canadians are often quick to pat ourselves on the back because we haven’t devolved into the craziness south of the border when it comes to gun violence.

But Stevenson pointed to some startling statistics which show we’re not as safe north of the 49th parallel as some might think.

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For example, Statistics Canada says that between 2009 and 2022 gun-related violence in Canada increased by 71%.

That’s a staggering figure when you consider how difficult it’s supposed to be to acquire a firearm, particularly a handgun, in our nation.

But Stevenson also pointed to other concerning trends, such as the fact in that same time period one in three homicides were gun-related.

“Gang-related homicides in our largest Canadian cities has doubled,” he noted.

In Toronto, between 2014 and 2018 the number of shooting incidents increased by two-and-a-half times.

In the 38-member Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, of which our nation is a member, Canada ranks fifth in gun deaths per capita, behind only the U.S., Finland, Austria and France, Stevenson said.

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“I fear that we are developing a gun culture like that that exists in many areas in our neighbour to the south,” the judge said.

Hopefully the sentence handed Deverze will resonate with what might otherwise be trigger-happy criminals.

If not, tragedy will remain an instant away.

As the Alberta Court of Appeal said: “Mere possession of loaded firearms is inherently dangerous. When such weapons are allowed in the community, death and serious injury are literally at hand, only an impulse and trigger pull away.”

Let’s hope those words are more cautionary than prophetic.

KMartin@postmedia.com

X: @KMartinCourts

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