Police in Yellowknife say they still have no answers over a series of shootings stretching back to November last year, including a double homicide in March.
That month, two people were shot dead on Bigelow Crescent in what police have characterized as a drug-related incident.
That followed a killing on 47 Street last November, while on Friday this week another homicide was reported on Con Road.
RCMP bosses have already referred to “unprecedented homicides” in the NWT related to an increase in drug dealing. But police say after months working on some of these cases, they have no updates.
“We know for certain that there are some eyewitnesses who have not come forward or refused to speak with us,” RCMP spokesperson Cpl Matt Halstead said on Friday, referring to the March double homicide.
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“That file is still being actively investigated, as is the one in November of 2023,” he said.
“We are looking at all of these files independently but also looking for any connections. We haven’t come to any conclusions at this point but we are very alive to the possibility that there may be connections.”
Halstead said people in these cases appear even less willing that might normally be the case to talk.
“We have encountered significant reluctance on the part of people to talk to us, often providing fear of reprisal as the reason,” he said.
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“We are usually able to assuage these concerns when we talk to people about the court process and how investigative information is kept confidential. However, the possibility of having to testify in open court is still a very real possibility.
“It has been very challenging providing updates to the families of the victims and having to tell them there are likely people out there that could bring the investigation to charge, were they to cooperate.”
The November death, understood to have taken place at the Hilltop apartments, wasn’t identified by RCMP as a gun-related homicide at the time. Little has been made public about what took place.
Early on March 16, officers reaching Bigelow Crescent discovered one person dead and another seriously injured, who later passed away in hospital.
“Our investigation to date supports that these homicides were targeted events that relate to the illicit drug trade in Yellowknife,” police said two days later.
A subsequent appeal for video footage from nearby homes generated “a lot of cooperation from the greater community,” police added a week later, but no charges have been laid.
In the latest case, police say they arrived at 42 Con Road at around 1am on Friday to find a 31-year-old man “suffering from an apparent gunshot wound.” Despite the efforts of emergency responders, RCMP say he died at the scene.
Police subsequently called it “the fourth homicide involving firearms in Yellowknife since November of 2023.”
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Anyone in the building who heard what happened or saw anything suspicious is asked to call police at 867-669-1111 or leave a tip anonymously online.
In an interview with the CBC this month before leaving for a post in Timmins, outgoing NWT RCMP boss Chief Supt Syd Lecky drew a direct link between drugs and “the unprecedented homicides that we’ve had,” acknowledging there was an “inability to hold offenders accountable.”
“We have some challenges keeping people on bail when they’re in the accused category,” he said. “They don’t stop offending when they’re on bail, oftentimes, and they often come from other jurisdictions … violent offenders who have bail restrictions that are ignored, and they show up here to cause harm in our communities.
“It’s a significant pressure on our community members, community leaders, and certainly our police.”
The NWT’s incoming government has said it will make public safety a priority, with Premier RJ Simpson specifically singling out the territory’s RCMP as an area he wants to strengthen.
“I know the RCMP are doing what they can, but the tools they have traditionally used to combat drugs and gangs – those over the years have been eroded by changes to the criminal code, decisions of the Supreme Court,” Simpson told Cabin Radio last year.
“As a territorial government, we need to look at what we can do to give the RCMP and communities tools.”
