In the first weeks of April 2024, Saskatoon police were scrambling to deal with a cluster of homicides.

There had been five violent deaths in the first three months of the year, and then, in a two week span in April, three more homicides, including two in a 24-hour span.

According to Sasktoon Police Service (SPS) statistics, 622 assaults were reported in the city between January and March last year. This year, there have been 628 in the same period.

So while the number of assaults are close, major…