Canadians who have worked in law enforcement are concerned with recent on-duty police officer deaths that appear to have been targeted — a number that has passed the annual average seen in the past half-century.
The latest example occurred on Monday, when a Montreal police officer was killed in the line of duty responding to reports of an armed suspect in the city’s Côte-des-Neiges borough. Montreal police officer Mohamed Lamine Benredouane was shot and killed, along with a civilian.
That death followed two other officers who were targeted and killed while on duty in Ontario earlier this month.
“It is a stark and disturbing trend,” said Tom Stamatakis, president of the Canadian Police Association, an advocacy group for officers across Canada.
Toronto police Const. Marc Pinizzotto was fatally shot on June 11 while officers were carrying out a search at an apartment building in the city’s northwest linked to investigations into multiple shootings, including at the U.S. Consulate in March.
OPP Const. Tarun Bali was killed in Hearst, Ont., on June 9 while attempting to stop a vehicle.
Those three deaths are above the average number of deaths believed to be caused by intentional acts such as gunfire, stabbings or believed to be deliberately struck by a vehicle, according to a report by Justin Piché, a University of Ottawa criminology professor.
The report looked at Statistics Canada data regarding on-duty police deaths across the country between 1962 and 2026, with 175 total so far the result of intentional acts. The data shows there’s an average of 2.7 deaths per year, with the three just this month surpassing that average.
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But he said the data shows it’s still lower than previous years, with it noting there were five in 2022, six in 2023, and reached as high as 12 in 1962.
“It’s important to note that a cluster of deaths doesn’t necessarily make for a trend that holds or, you know, a wave necessarily,” Piché said.
A total of five police officers have died in the line of duty this year, three from attacks with two a result of motor vehicle incidents.
In the past 64 years, 416 on-duty officers died between 1962 and 2026 with the remaining 241 dying as a result of other causes such as motor vehicle crashes, medical issues at work, or accidental shootings by colleagues.
Some police say they believe there is an increase in officer deaths in the line of duty, though the reasoning is not yet clear.
“We don’t have to go back very far, but we can go back even if we start to look back at the changing in attitudes across North America towards people in authority and towards police officers,” said Jeff McGuire, retired chief of Niagara Regional Police.
“I think the general overall propensity for violence and hatred towards people in authority was far different than it is now and a big part of that is societal change and challenges, people’s upbringing and parental control on people at a younger age.”
It’s not just deaths. A number of Canadian police officers have been injured or nearly hurt in recent weeks.
Two Saskatchewan RCMP officers were shot and injured in an armed standoff on Sunday.
The same day, a Peel Regional Police officer was shot at as he chased down a suspect who fled the area during proactive patrols in Mississauga. The officer was not struck by the gunfire.
Three teenage boys are facing charges after striking a Toronto police officer with their vehicle last week during a stolen chase. The officer was seriously injured.
Every one of those injuries or deaths is more than a number, Stamatakis told Global News. He said even if the data shows the number of deaths from international harm is lower than previous years, the affects are widespread.
“The numbers make no difference to the families who have lost a loved one, to the colleagues of the officers who were murdered,” Stamatakis said. “Looking at the numbers does a disservice to the officers that we’ve lost, to the families, but also to the broader policing community that, every day, are putting themselves in harm’s way.”
Even if numbers seem lower than the 1960s, Piché said it doesn’t diminish the fact officers are dying in the line of duty, with some happening intentionally.
“These numbers will not make anyone feel better about these incidents,” he said.
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