A male youth is in critical condition following a shotgun blast to his upper body behind an inner city home early Saturday.
The shooting is the latest in an escalating series of shootings reported since last fall in the city.
Police tape marks the scene of a shooting in the 300 block of Home Street, as police continue to investigate.
And it comes days after Statistic Canada concluded in a new national report that Winnipeg is second only behind Vancouver in firearms crime.
The overall rate of crime stayed the same between 2002 and 2006 but more young people are using guns in crimes, Statistics Canada said in the report released last Wednesday.
Meanwhile residents in the 300 block of Home Street in the city's core area got a first hand sense of that rising crime rate overnight.
Just before 1 a.m. police were called to the back lane of the block, close to a Burger King joint on Portage Avenue across from Vimy Ridge Park.
The police found a youth, in critical condition, with a gunshot wound to his upper body. He was taken to hospital in critical condition.
Police investigators spent part of the night checking out the area.
They were still on the scene this morning.
Yellow tape cordoned off the scene of the crime at daybreak. A police cruiser was parked inside the cordoned-off area late into the morning. A resident near the location where police found the youth said investigators scoured the neighbourhood overnight looking for a suspect in the shooting.
The resident who did not want his name used said the family's dogs started barking around 2 a.m. and his partner found police with flashlights searching the family's front porch.
The officers said they were looking for a suspect in a shooting. No one reported hearing shots Saturday morning.
The neighbourhood was the scene of a fire a week ago and the area is a mixed neighbourhood. Some homes show recent signs of renovations, with new paint jobs and windows. There are homes with fenced-in front and back yards. Dogs behind the fences barked incessantly Saturday morning as a reporter knocked on doors canvassing the neighbourhood.
One neighbour said there are known gang haunts on the street a few blocks north but normally the 300 block is quieter and more peaceful. He said he was grateful police searched the neighbourhood door to door last night, checking anywhere a suspect might have hidden from police.
alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca
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