VANCOUVER - There were fewer killings in Vancouver last year than the year before, despite a bloody gang war that raged throughout the region, Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu said Wednesday.
Chu and Mayor Gregor Robertson delivered a good-news message: Crime overall is down and aggressive anti-gang measures are making the city's streets more peaceable.
But Roberston acknowledged organized crime doesn't stop at Vancouver's border and more effort will be put into co-ordinating regional policing.
Vancouver, with a population of around 600,000, recorded 18 homicides last year, one less than in 2008, while attempted murders, robberies and assaults also dropped.
But that's less than a third of the roughly five dozen killings last year in Metropolitan Vancouver -- population more than two million. The figure rises to about 70 if eastern Fraser Valley communities are included.
By contrast Metropolitan Toronto, with a population of around 5.5 million, reported 62 homicides last year.
Calgary, with about 1.2 million people, had 19 homicides in the first nine months of last year.
Most of the murders in Metro Vancouver happened in the first half of last year, when gangs warring over the drug trade made increasingly public attacks on each other.
But Chu said the city's anti-gang measures paid off in cutting the number of shots-fired reports by eight per cent last year compared with 2008, and by 35 per cent over 2007.
Bars, nightclubs and restaurants frequented by armed gangsters became increasingly off-limits as proprietors used computerized lists and photos to weed out known troublemakers.
Police also roamed Vancouver's raucous entertainment district and warned gang members to leave. Chu himself helped turf out a group of gangsters from a Granville Street club on New Year's Eve.
"We kicked out about eight gang members," he said. "We said 'you can't party here' and out they went into the street, in the rain, nothing to do on New Year's Eve."
Robertson acknowledged a crackdown in Vancouver can push criminal activity to neighbouring municipalities such as Surrey, Delta and Abbotsford, a city of about 138,000 that's home to the Red Scorpions gang and recorded nine homicides last year.
"We're pursuing better integration from the departments in different municipalities," said Robertson.
"There's a real focus now on trying to police the region better and working more co-operatively together and in a more integrated fashion so that we don't just push the crime around the region."
Chu cautioned that while crime overall is down in Vancouver, its crime rate remains 50 to 60 per cent higher than other major Canadian cities, in part because of high levels of property crime.
"We have the addicted criminal offenders who support their drug addictions by committing property crimes," said Chu.
"We have more of those individuals than the cities of Toronto and Montreal do. Vancouver is a city that is a warm climate and attracts certain people."
Chu said police are tackling the problem by jumping on hot spots and targeting chronic repeat offenders -- fast-tracking drug treatment when it's possible and advocating for longer sentences when it isn't.
