The brazen violence on the weekend — a murder in a public housing complex and a wild Ouellette Avenue street fight in which two people were stabbed — was the last straw for Mayor Drew Dilkens, who announced nine "zero tolerance" measures to address the dramatically escalating crime rate.

The brazen violence on the weekend — a murder in a public housing complex and a wild Ouellette Avenue street fight in which two people were stabbed — was the last straw for Mayor Drew Dilkens, who announced nine “zero tolerance” measures to address the dramatically escalating crime rate.

“We were already talking about some of these things. After this weekend I said: ‘That’s it, we’re doing something Monday,'” the mayor said following a Monday news conference at city hall. “This is crazy what I’m seeing out there and so this precipitated getting this out today.”

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The measures include:

Hiring 12 additional officers for $1.4 million annually, just two months after similar concerns prompted approval of hiring 12 officers and creating a new unit to initially focus on the crime problem area, the downtown.

Creating an eight-officer downtown foot patrol, made up existing officers, at an extra cost of $320,000 annually.

Calling on federal and provincial governments to provide grants and increased resources to help deal with gangs, guns and drugs and the flow of drugs and guns through the border.

Assigning regular patrols around schools, where there have been recent cases of kids discovering used syringes. “It’s completely unacceptable what we’re seeing in front of our schools,” Dilkens said.

Calling on the Ontario government make legislative changes so the city can prevent people evicted from public housing for crimes like prostitution, drugs and violence from getting back in.

Passing a bylaw requiring downtown entertainment lounges (any bar with a dance floor) to use metal detectors to prevent customers from carrying weapons.

And returning out-of-town criminals who have outstanding warrants back to where they’re from.

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“We will be the only city in Canada that’s going to put somebody on a plane and send him away to fulfil the conditions of a warrant,” said Dilkens.

“And we’re prepared to do that (at Windsor’s expense) to rid this community of some of the criminal behaviour we’re seeing from people who don’t even live here, who don’t call Windsor home, who didn’t grow up here and are here to cause problems.

“It’s not OK and we’re going to send you back.”

If someone is hanging out here, creating criminal activity, we don’t want him here

The mayor said he’s disturbed by the number of homicides so far this year — seven. Three of those homicides involved gun violence, noted Windsor Police Chief Al Frederick.

“That’s a very significant increase over our average, which is usually one or two a year and … it was just a few years ago when we had a 24-month period with no homicides,” Frederick said.

“So this is a huge departure from the norm and we need to get a handle on it.”

The increase in call volumes for police assistance and to 911 has been dramatic, according to the mayor and chief. This year is on track for 119,400 calls for police help, which is 15 per cent higher than last year and 22 per cent higher than the average from the past five years. Calls to 911 rose 12 per cent in 2017 and are on track for another 12 per cent increase this year.

Five years ago, Windsor police had 473 sworn officers, but declining crime rates — attributed largely to the aging population — meant that the number could shrink through attrition to 428 today.

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“Now, as we see the crime rate escalating and escalating quickly, we need to be able to respond and get more boots on the ground,” the mayor said.

Photo by Dax Melmer / Windsor Star

The chief said he was particularly alarmed by the double stabbing early Sunday morning on Ouellette, because officers were there, trying to get control of the situation, when it happened. “The brazenness of that and the risk everyone was in, including our officers, that’s a little shocking — the respect for authority wasn’t there because our officers were present.”

Dilkens said “people need to know,” that in public housing complexes like 920 Ouellette, criminals often come from Toronto and take over the apartment of a vulnerable person — providing that person with drugs for the weekend while they sell drugs out of the unit. The next weekend, they may take over another tenant’s unit, which makes it hard for police to get warrants and catch them in the act. But if these criminals had outstanding warrants in Toronto, they could be returned to face their charges.

The chief explained that when an arrest warrant is issued in another jurisdiction, a radius is applied that means if he’s caught outside the radius the arresting police force isn’t required to transport him back. With any arrest made outside the radius, the expense of transporting is paid by the original jurisdiction. That often doesn’t happen because of the expense. But now Windsor is going to start paying that expense to get these people out of the city, the mayor said.

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Photo by Dax Melmer / Windsor Star

“If someone is hanging out here, creating criminal activity, we don’t want him here.”

He said that decision to transport will at the discretion of police. But if, for example, a person had a rap sheet with 32 charges including numerous break-ins, he’d be a good candidate.

Calling on the province to allow municipalities to keep criminals out of public housing is an idea that the City of Toronto has been lobbying for. Dilkens said every year about 100 people are evicted from Windsor public housing for prostitution, drugs and violence. But once they’re evicted, in many cases they’re considered homeless and are given a special priority that allows them to “jump the queue” of 4,500 on the waiting list to get back in.

“These are the worst of the worst people who have committed crimes and are making life hell for residents in some of our social housing units, and we are not going to let them continue,” said Dilkens, who just two weeks ago announced a $4-million public safety platform as part of his re-election campaign. Those measures include a $2-million modernization of the 911 system and $1.5 million for 100 security cameras across the city.

Dilkens stressed that the measures announced Monday are not part of his campaign.

“I’m a candidate, but I’m still the mayor and people expect action to happen, they expect us to look at what’s going on and we can’t wait until Dec. 1 for the next council to make decisions here,” he said.

“We have to … take action now, get the resources in place, because I fear this could get worse before it gets better.”