Saskatoon’s interim police chief discusses violence in city with Bray

Interim Saskatoon Police Chief Dave Haye told The Evan Bray Show on Tuesday that his police force has been dealing with a lot of violent crimes just three months into the new year.

“It surprised me that in one file alone, we have like seven people involved in an incident here in downtown involving bear spray,” said Haye.

“The issues around bear spray date back like 10 years. It’s a big issue in our community and when I was looking at the crime stats for the last week, we had 10 bear spray incidents in a week. What are we, 12 weeks into the year?”

There are some new regulations being implemented by the provincial government surrounding bear spray.

On Tuesday, the government announced it had created regulations to restrict the possession of bear spray in public urban spaces. The regulations also will prohibit altering bear spray in order to hide or disguise the product’s identity.

Anyone charged under the new regulations could face fines of up to $100,000.

Haye also said that when it comes to violent crimes, there have been a lot of murders in the city so far in 2024.

To date in Saskatoon this year, there have been five killings in the first three months. In one case, a 12-year-old and a 13-year-old were charged with manslaughter in the death of a 12-year-old boy.

The killings are a concern for Haye.

“It’s such a tragic event when something like that happens,” he said. “It comes down to the proliferation of weapons in our communities and how easy it is for weapons to be found in homes and the lack of proper care of something that is really a weapon used for hunting. We have to make sure they’re properly cared for.”

“And then there’s the supervision of our children. We can’t be in our children’s pockets 24 hours (a day) and it’s a puzzle. How do you solve it? Only through education and getting parents engaged with their children.”

Haye added there also have been issues in Saskatoon when it comes to dealing with gang violence and the drug trade.

Haye told Bray it hasn’t been easy dealing with those incidents in recent years.

“We’ve been targeting gang violence and activity for many years,” Haye said. “We have a Guns and Gangs Unit, we have the Crime Reduction Team (and) we have a drug unit, but we’re the only game in town now because the RCMP pulled out of our drug unit. So we’re doing it all by ourselves.

“We have lots of good partnerships in the community in order to target gangs. We can do more if we took resources away from something else, but it’s always a balancing act.”

Haye added he feels the police service is supported in its actions by the Board of Police Commissioners.