The Cormac MacSweeney Blog - 660News Calgary

It’s been hard to ignore the headlines over the past week and a half. In a nine-day period we have had eight violent deaths, ranging from a teenager being pushed into a C-train, to a gang related shootout between two SUVs driving down 4th Avenue SW.

Calgary’s homicide tally is now standing at 20, that’s 17 murders short of our city’s record and there are just under four months left in the year. If the violent trend keeps up, there is a chance that we could set a new record, which is nothing we’d like to see.

With the recent crime wave the question keeps popping up, “is Calgary still safe?” I guess it all depends on who you talk to. Many people I’ve spoken with on the street have made comment after comment about how crime ridden our city is becoming. Friends and co-workers shake their heads at reports of yet another violent crime. Some say they are now afraid of walking through the neighbourhoods they grew up in.

Not everyone feels this way. There are many who think this has just been a spike in criminal activity and Calgary is still a place where you can leave your front doors unlocked and take your dog for a walk without total fear. I have had a couple of people tell me per capita the crime rate is still low and people are blowing this out of proportion.

So, are we safe? Statistics Canada says that in 2006 our crime rate on a national level fell by three per cent and in Alberta it’s down five per cent…one of the largest drops in the country.

Police are maintaining that our city is safe. Deputy Chief Peter Davison says he believes Calgary to be one of the safest cities in the world while admitting with a population of over a million there is bound to be crime. At least he is not blind to the reality that if violent crimes continue there will be some changes to policing methods in our city to deal with it.

I met a man on Sunday at the scene of the gang related shootout on 4th Avenue. He was answering questions from another news outlet, and when asked about how this crime scares him, he says it just rolls off his back. He said he was from Toronto and things like that happen too often in that city so when it occurs here on the odd occasion it doesn’t make him want to put bars on his window or buy a pit bull to guard his home. We talked afterwards about the difference between Calgary and Toronto. By comparison, it does appear that we still live in a place that is as safe as a city this size can be. I myself am from Toronto and grew up in a bad neighborhood called Rexdale. I can assure you I feel much more relaxed in my new home in the SW.

Other people playing the comparing game have said to me Calgary is not as bad as Vancouver or Regina, just to name a couple.

So I guess the question really is do you think we’re safe? When comparing to my hometown, I certainly think we are, but I’m not a person who has lived here when crime was virtually absent. Do you believe the crime rate makes our city unsafe to live in? Do you think it’s time that everyone carries pepper spray and a keychain panic button? Do you think we should install bars on our windows? Or do you think this is a spike in crime and nothing more? Do you believe we can still live as freely as we did 5-10 years ago? Do you still feel safe walking in this city?

It seems when it comes to our safety, I am left with more questions than answers.

Working in radio, my job revolves around words. The words I choose in my reports can bring tears to your eyes or give you a good chuckle on your drive to and from work. But what happens when I have problems saying certain words? 

It doesn’t matter who you are, there are always those 4 or 5 (or more) words you can never properly get out of your mouth. Although we here at 660 ews are professional journalists we suffer from the same problem.
 
I myself have a big problem saying the word “statistics;” it generally comes out sounding like st-ist-iss-ics. Since we don’t like embarrassing ourselves, reporters and anchors tend to replace these problem words with synonyms that we can actually pronounce. I replace the word “statistics” with stats.
 
When you can’t avoid problem words it makes things difficult. One of them I can’t avoid is the name of one of our reporters. When I sit at the anchors desk I have to concentrate when throwing to James Munroe. If I don’t, and casually read his name it can sometimes come out a mumbled mess. It usually helps to slow down my read and articulate while desperately trying not to screw it up.
 
Some of my co-workers have confessed their problem words but out of respect I will refrain from giving their names. One anchor says she hates saying “Detroit Red Wings.” She doesn’t have a speech impediment but still ends up saying Det-woit Wed Wings. She avoids the team name by simply saying Detroit or Red Wings…which she can easily get through.
 
Some other problem words are “preferably” or puh-fur-ubly, “realtor” or re-latur, “film” or fill-um, “nuclear” or nu-cular, “especially” or ex-pecially, “interac” or interact, and “specialty” or spesh-ee-ality. 

Although I didn’t hear it on our station (thankfully), I must say my favourite problem word is the capital city of Saskatchewan, Regina.
 
I’ll let you figure that one out.
 
As I said before we simply replace our problem words to avoid running into any on air issues. Needless to say a The-thaurus…I mean “Thesaurus” can be a journalist’s best friend.

Today started like any other morning show shift. I got up at 2:30, made my way to the station, sat down at my computer and read the paper. It was no surprise that my first story would be the horrific car crash I had been hearing about on my way into work.

Someone had been driving down 9^th Ave., veered off the road into a parking lot, slammed into the wall of a building, bounced back about five-10 metres, rolled over onto its roof and then burst into flames.

When I got to the scene around 5:15 a.m. the 2002 black Volvo was a mangled wreck. The front end of the car was crushed like a tin can with the hood barely hanging onto the hinges. A door and wheel were ripped right off the frame, the fender and bumper were lying at least 10 metres away, and there was debris everywhere. It wasn’t pretty.

The Fire Department had to use the Jaws of Life to free the two people inside the car. Police believe alcohol and high speeds were factors in the crash.

Being a reporter, I have seen many car wrecks and have become somewhat desensitized to the carnage, but people walking and driving by couldn’t help but slow down and stare.

This may sound amazing on its own, and it was, but the remarkable part of the story came from a regular bunch of guys working at a printing press.

Their workplace just happens to be right next to the building that the car slammed into. One of the workers heard the crash and after seeing the flames, grabbed a fire extinguisher and called to his co-workers. As he and another man battled the blaze, the other employees gathered up the rest of the fire extinguishers and brought them out. The fire was snuffed before Emergency Crews arrived.

I think it’s safe to say, if it weren’t for the actions of these men the fire would have kept burning and the outcome for the couple in the car could have been deadly. From passersby to the manager of these workers, everyone is calling them heroes. They put their lives on the line to try and save complete strangers.

Their manager told me they did what everyone would do in that situation. Unfortunately that may not be true.

Not everyone would take that risk for people they don’t know, not everyone would jump up to help as if on instinct and not everyone would work as an organized team in an emergency. No you can’t find these traits in every person.

These men didn’t do what everyone would; these men did what everyone wishes they had the guts to do in a situation like that. This is why I have no problem calling them heroes.

I spent about 6 hours on scene talking about the carnage and the amazing feat of a group of ordinary night shift workers. Although I was exhausted at the end of my shift, I felt a satisfaction in knowing I told a story of an extraordinarily selfless act.