The death of a Toronto police officer today, Sgt. Ryan Russell, 35, who was apparently run down by a crazed driver in a stolen snowplow, is a shocking, but relatively rare event. Statistics Canada figures (docs after the jump) on the deaths of police officers in the line of duty show that only a few are killed on the job, 125 in a 40-year span, and roughly nine out of every 10 police officers killed while on duty died at the hands of an assailant with a gun. Taxi driving is the most dangerous occupation in Canada, in terms of the risk of being murdered on the job.
Canada’s penitentiary capital, home to some of the country’s vilest (incarcerated) citizens, is now home to the nation’s top crime busters, according to Statistics Canada. The national number crunching agency has released its annual report (full doc after the jump) that tracks the size, spending and crime-solving prowess of all of the country’s police departments. The municipal police service in Kingston, Ontario, population roughly 120,000, solved 47.8% of the roughly 7,300 crimes reported in 2009, according to StatsCan. This means that they can boast that they’re number 1 among big city police departments.
