Windsor had 0 reported murders in 2010 for first time since 1963
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/...rder-free-year
Windsor closes in on murder-free year
The Toronto Star
Dec. 30, 2010
Windsor, Ont. — A city synonymous with economic turmoil and high unemployment — is on the verge of ending 2010 without a single murder. It’s a remarkable feat for a city with a population of more than 215,000 people and that borders Detroit, which was once dubbed “murder city.” Windsor’s mayor, Eddie Francis, says the murder-free year is just a sign of the city’s rise. “The fact that we’re going to have, hopefully, zero murders I think just allows us to really reinforce how safe we are as a community to the rest of the province, the rest of the country and to the rest of the world,” said Francis. Windsor’s reputation, said Francis, has been marred by old, unfair perceptions.
“Obviously we were battered by the economic recession because of our concentration of automotive industry and heavy manufacturing here,” he said. “But over the past several years we’ve used that opportunity to reposition this city.” According to Statistics Canada, 5,700 new jobs opened up in the Windsor-Sarnia region last year. Over the same period the unemployment rate fell slightly from 10 per cent to 9.4 per cent. It’s still, however, the highest unemployment rate in Canada.
But through the hard times the people of Windsor have been resilient, Francis said. They’ve stuck together, persevered and made Windsor “a very different city, very different region, very different community than it was two or three years ago.” In “32 blissful years” with the Windsor police force, deputy chief Jerome Brannagan has never seen anything like it. In fact, the city’s last murder-less year was 1963.
Windsor has averaged five murders a year for the past decade. According to the most recent numbers from the FBI, Detroit had 146 murders between January and June of 2010. That was down 28 per cent from last year. Detroit police won’t release their homicide total until the end of January. Toronto has had 60 homicides this year.
“The thing that most fail to take into consideration is the great people that live in this very strong and very giving community of Windsor-Essex County,” Brannagan said proudly. “They’re good, decent people,” he said. “Just because you lose your job, it doesn’t mean you’re going to become a drug dealer.”
In part, Brannagan credits the police force’s focus on preventing gangs from Toronto and the United States from creeping into the downtrodden border city.
He also credits luck. “You cannot live in with close to a quarter of a million people and have situations not arise where the opportunity for homicide doesn’t raise its ugly head,” he said.
