Winter weather, crime keep crews busy on weekend

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A police bust on Sherbrook Street near Sargent Avenue in the aftermath of the Johnny G’s shooting. (BORIS MINKEVICH)

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A police officer at the shooting scene at Johnny G’s restaurant on Main Street. (BORIS MINKEVICH)

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Winnipeg police on the scene of a fatal accident at Isabel Street and Notre Dame Avenue Friday. (BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ARCHIVES) Photo Store

A slaying linked to gang violence launched Manitoba's long weekend and by Monday, a winter-weather blast had closed highways and been cited as a factor in the death of a stranded motorist.

In between, police, ambulance, and fire crews responded to countless collisions, holdups, a second shooting, and chalked up yet another major drug bust.

The shooting death of a known gang member in Johnny G's Restaurant and Bar on Main Street raised the spectre of a gangland slaying Friday.

William Edward Moar, 24, succumbed to injuries from a single gunshot wound and police released few details over the weekend about suspects or arrests in the investigation.

Police did not report any arrests by Tuesday morning.

People in the bar at the time reported a man dressed in black entered the bar shortly before 2 a.m. when Moar was said to be returning to his table from somewhere else, possibly the washroom. The man in black reportedly fired two shots.

The first shot missed and almost hit an employee, witnesses said. The other shot struck Moar. A staff member who removed Moar's hat said Moar had been hit in the head.

On Saturday, there was a second shooting that injured a man. Police were called to the Quest Inn on Ellice Avenue about 9 p.m. There they learned a man, 24, had made his way to the hotel after being shot at a house party in the North End. He was in hospital in stable condition.

On Sunday, police announced they'd caught some suspects.

Police also arrested the alleged hit-and-run driver in a two-car crash that struck a 53-year-old pedestrian who was waiting for a bus at 6 a.m. Friday at Isabel Street and Notre Dame Avenue. She died shortly afterward.

The 18-year-old suspected drunk driver was charged with a long list of serious offences, including dangerous driving causing death and causing bodily harm, driving impaired causing death and causing bodily harm. The young man was also charged with being a novice driver who drove without supervision and with being in breach of a recognizance.

Police tracked the driver to a residence in the northwest part of the city on Sunday and arrested him.

The 18-year-old was allegedly behind the wheel of a Chevrolet Impala packed with six passengers that ran a red light and hit another car. The force of the collision pushed the second car onto the sidewalk at Isabel Street and Notre Dame Avenue, striking the pedestrian.

The driver of the second car, a Honda CRV, and its three passengers, were injured and all were admitted to hospital in stable condition.

And police rounded up a suspect and charged him in a shooting three weeks earlier that left three men injured.

The three had been at an after-hours club Jan. 27 in the 100 block of Keewatin Avenue when a verbal argument turned violent. The suspect was reported to have pulled out a firearm and shot all three men in the lower body.

A 36-year-old man faces firearms charges.

That was followed by an announcement police had made two more busts in their ongoing crackdown on drug trafficking.

The latest arrests on Valentine's Day netted a cache of nearly $250,000 in cash, a stash of cocaine and marijuana and thousands of dollars worth of property.

A 27-year-old Winnipeg man and a 22-year-old woman from Lockport were arrested and face various criminal charges.

Also Sunday, a pair of suspected robbers, one of whom was reported to be armed, allegedly stole a cash register from a downtown coffee shop near the Law Courts.

The hapless suspects made it about six blocks before police picked them up.

By Monday, the crime spree was still ticking along, despite the foul weather.

Masked robbers hit a convenience store in the 100 block of St. Mary's Road. Neither of the two workers on duty was injured. The two suspects made off with cash, cigarettes and other merchandise. Police did not identify the type of weapons the suspects carried.

Meanwhile, in Portage la Prairie Monday, RCMP reported a home invasion.

A homeowner was allegedly assaulted after two disguised robbers, one brandishing a sword and the other a baseball bat, invaded a house in the city. The homeowner was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

Two 18-year-old men, one from Carman and the other from Portage, were later arrested. They remained in custody Monday.

Monday morning, a man who said he was armed held up a pharmacy in the heart of Osborne Village and made off with a stash of prescription drugs, including 180 10-milligram tablets of oxycodone. He was described as a Caucasian man in his mid-50s.

St. Pierre Jolys RCMP reported Monday a man had been found unconscious about 6:30 a.m. on a roadside about five kilometres north of Landmark.

Attempts to resuscitate the 54-year-old local man failed at the scene, just off Provincial Road 210. His name was not released.

Investigators found a vehicle stranded nearby in a ditch and RCMP believe the man left it after he was stranded. He was found about 50 metres away. Visibility and road conditions were treacherous.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 19, 2013 A4