When it comes to crime, 2016 could well be remembered for a summertime spree of gunplay in areas of the city where it was least expected.
It began on the evening of June 9 when, according to RCMP, "multiple people" armed with guns showed up at a 700-block Freeman Street home in a vehicle and forced their way in.
Shots were fired and a stray bullet went through a neighbour's home, narrowly missing the parents and two children just as they were to sit down for dinner.
Darius Trey Veld, was arrested but after 182 days in custody, he was sentenced to jail time served and one year probation for possession for the purpose of trafficking while counts of unlawful discharge of a firearm and careless use of a firearm.
The incident in Central Fort George was followed six days later by a murder in the Pinecone neighbourhood when a 30-year-old Prince George man was gunned down.
His body was found in the driveway of a 3600-block Forest Avenue home near Ospika Boulevard, said Prince George RCMP, who were called to the scene on June 15 at 11:20 p.m.
Police, who have never released the victim's name, suspect it was a targeted attack with links to the drug trade.
Then, shortly after midnight on June 23, more shooting erupted, this time at a 3600-block Gould Crescent home - a block away from where the murder had occurred.
Five people were arrested and one man was transported to hospital with a non-life-threatening injury that was not a gunshot wound.
No charges have been layed in either of the Pinecone incidents but, on July 16, RCMP seized four handguns - two fully loaded and one with a silencer - along with three long guns with ammunition, various bags of ammunition, from a Lorne Crescent home.
At the time, police also said they would be looking for links between their discovery and the shootings. Ryan John Moore and Kathleen Rose Slater remain in custody on charges related to the seizure and the streak of such incidents came to an end.
The murder was the first homicide within city limits in 10 months and so far no arrests have been made. Likewise, no arrests have been made in the death of Travis Inias Basil, 33, whose body was found in 2102 Upland St. on Aug. 11.
Add on the March 22, 2015 death of former Renegades biker gang leader Jason Alexander Hall, who was killed in a drive-by shooting on Fifth Avenue near Gillett, and that of Ian Matthew Begg, whose body was found at the end of Haldi Lake Road on Aug. 23, 2015 and that's four homicides for which no arrests have been made.
RCMP were more successful in tracking down suspects for attempt murders in 2016.
In February, Jeff John Lapier and Ashlyn Noel Ruth Forrest were arrested in relation to the shooting of a woman in Moore's Meadow earlier the same month.
That was followed in March by the arrest of Jamie Wade Fatum a few days after a shooting outside an apartment building near the corner of 17th and Upland.
Further afield, Meranda Leigh Dingwall, Kelly Michael Richet and Christopher Ryan Russell were all arrested in July, about a week after a targeted shooting in Mackenzie. The trio were also charged with arson causing damage to property.
And in November, a father and son - James Stanley Filiatraut and William Thomas Filiatraut were arrested and charged with attempted murder after a 30-year-old woman escaped a RCMP described as a "brutal attack" on a remote logging road about 50 kilometres west of the city.
All four cases remain before the court and all seven remain in custody.
