Calgary police Chief Mark Neufeld described 2024 as a successful year. A busy year.

“It’s been a fast year,” he told LWC in our year-end interview.

While there are some successes, Chief Neufeld recognized there are headwinds afoot, and an evolution of crime in Calgary that they’re keeping a close watch on.

One of the challenges is meshing statistics with Calgarians’ perception of public safety, particularly in the downtown. Chief Neufeld said that citywide, shootings are trending down 30 per cent compared with last year and even more compared with 2023 and 2022.

 In the downtown, calls from the community are down 16 per cent in 2024, compared with the five-year average.

“I would say that our city is getting safer, and our downtown is getting safer, but at the same time, I don’t know that that’s the perception,” Chief Neufeld said.  

“That’s certainly not what I’m hearing uniformly from folks. When we talk to business owners, when we talk to people that are downtown Calgary, economic development, the downtown safety leadership table, people are still feeling unsafe in the downtown.”

There’s been a considerable investment in downtown safety, which the Chief said is good news. He cited provincial investment in more officers, the establishment of the Community Engagement Response Teams (CERT),  the province’s newly-established navigation centres, and the SMART program, where they have social workers at the Calgary Police Service arrest processing unit to screen people for opioid dependency and other vulnerabilities.

“I think there’s about 71 cases that have come across the action tables docket, if you will, since it’s been up and running,” Chief Neufeld said.

“So, they’ve been able to get people connected back to Indigenous communities and traditional ways, some folks have been able to get connected to services. It’s amazing anecdotal stories, but that’s 71 people.”

The new downtown Calgary police hub will also play a role in improving not only the crime in the area, but also the perception of safety, Chief Neufeld said. He said the issue was trying to boost police presence in the downtown.

When the CPS headquarters was at the Andrew Davison building and the arrest processing unit was downtown, there were always uniformed officers in the area. He said they’re hearing from people that they’re just not seeing police in the area anymore.

“Now today, even court, there’s more things that you can do online, going and applying for a warrant or whatever, some of these things you can do virtually now. So, there’s, collectively, there’s a lot less what we’ll call police movements in the downtown,” he said.  

“We’ve tried to compensate by putting you know, officers out in high visibility, you know, uniforms and stuff like that, so they’re noticed more, whether they’re beyond beats or bikes or whatever. But I would say that as we’ve even, as we’ve tried to do that, we haven’t been able to have the same sort of impact we had before

Homicides and organized crime

As of the year-end interview, Calgary was sitting at 16 homicides in 2024. Compared to 2023, it’s a 30 per cent drop (24 homicides).

Chief Neufeld said there’s been a focus on targeting those people who are consistently a potential danger to the public.

“It has been lots of good work done by the membership, both on the front lines and also with organized crimes team, focusing on one of the things I’d said is we’re going to focus on dangerous people, dangerous locations and dangerous activities, and using our data and our intel to tell us where to be,” he said.

“We did focus, I think, on the right individuals. Some key arrests, we have had an increase in about 20 per cent of crime guns seized as well.”

Chief Neufeld said that there are about 1,100 people in Calgary that they’ve identified as living what they call a high-risk lifestyle. These folks are involved in, or peripherally involved in, organized crime, he said.

“Of those, we’re able to identify individuals who we believe are capable of actually pulling the trigger in an urban environment. I’d like to think that there’s a small number of people that would be capable of that,” he said.

“To the extent that we can have a bit of a glimpse into who that might be, we can target our enforcement efforts to have the best value in terms of cutting down numbers like this.”

Another aspect of this the CPS has focused on is checking on people who are charged and released back into the community with conditions they aren’t to possess weapons or be out after a certain hour.  Chief Neufeld said they’re physically checking on those folks to ensure they’re abiding by conditions.

Protests and the dismantling of the UCalgary encampment

Chief Neufeld said, as he has in the past, that the protest environment in Calgary has continued to evolve over the past few years. Even this year started with anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ events, the Chief said.

The pro-Palestinian protests also evolved in 2024, escalating to the encampment situation at the University of Calgary. A lot has been learned through these changing experiences, Chief Neufeld said.

“The one thing that I certainly have learned is how important the communication and our protest liaison officers and our officers that are assigned to work with the community, how important the communication piece and the work that’s going to done from Monday to Friday,” he said.

“How critical that is in terms of what happens on Saturday and Sunday.”

There was a shift throughout the year in terms of pro-Palestinian groups taking more direct action, he said. It was something that has been seen in other parts of Canada and North America.

“If you want to protest, of course, we’re going to help you to do that, but realizing there’s a very delicate balance somewhere in there in terms of the impact of that protest or demonstration on the rest of the community,” Chief Neufeld said.

In retrospect, which Neufeld said always provides valuable insight, he doesn’t think they would have handled the University of Calgary encampment situation any differently. He said he understands that the CPS response has been a strong point of contention and that it’s OK for reasonable people to disagree on this.

Chief Neufeld said they had a conversation with UCalgary officials, stating they were agnostic in the situation, but informed the university officials to take a position, and then not waver on it.  He commended them on doing exactly that. He said they were clear in their position not allowing encampments and didn’t waver on it.

He acknowledged that there’s been a lot said about the impact.

“Our members probably took too much time. They did a great job,” he said.

“They probably, in trying to make sure they worked with people as long as they could, they probably took too much time, because the group there was actually having more people come.”

The Chief said they didn’t want to criminalize any young people participating in a cause they believed in. He said officers explained the consequences to protesters for not doing as asked.

“But actually, we had some of the most ardent activists in the city were part of that, and that was not going to end well,” he said.

“So at some point, the police, you can talk for a little bit, but at some point, if it’s clear that you’re not going to get cooperation, then you need to take action, and I commend our folks for doing it.”

Policing in 2025

One of the big events this upcoming year is the G7 summit to be held in Kananaskis. While the RCMP will take the lead on security for the international gathering, CPS will still be responsible for any security in Calgary, Chief Neufeld said.

He said the CPS is well-versed in handling big events – the annual Calgary Stampede, for example – and the city is one of the few that have hosted the summit more than once. There’s experience in bringing the world to Calgary, and they’ll rely on that when planning this year’s event.

Downtown safety, and the perception of it, continue to be a challenge in 2025. What could make it even more challenging is that Calgary will be entering into a municipal election period in 2025.

“I think most individuals who have identified themselves as running have said they’re going to be focused on public safety,” Chief Neufeld said.  

“That’s no surprise. So, I think there will be lots of politics around that issue as well.”

As an offshoot of the municipal side, the CPS will contend with a potential revenue loss given the province’s decision around photo radar. Chief Neufeld said it was difficult to determine what the impact would be in 2025. The Calgary Police Commission, however, said it could leave up to a $12 million hole the City of Calgary may have to fill in their budget.

One of the evolving areas of crime is online, particularly with the emergence of artificial intelligence. There will be a lot of different ways that criminals can perpetrate crimes, he said.

“We’ve already seen fake photos and you can replicate voices and stuff,” he said.

“I think again, the police will have to continue to be quite nimble around how we deal with the difference between, traditional crime, online crime.”

There are positive trends, too. Including a reduction in break and enters (down 40 per cent), and lower auto theft numbers, due in large part to improved security and technology in newer vehicles.

That, however, has led to the emergence of other crimes, like carjackings, where people are taking already running cars, whether there’s a person in them or not.

“In addition to just dealing with those issues, we’re also going to have to be communicating and advocating around changes in real-time so that we can actually protect Calgarians, Albertans and Canadians,” he said.