CITY police continued to search for suspects yesterday in what appears to be another shooting involving inner-city street gang the Mad Cowz.
Wednesday night's shooting left a 19-year-old man in hospital with a gunshot wound to his head and police on the hunt for two men believed members of the Mad Cowz, made up mostly of young men of African backgrounds.
Winnipeg police officers investigate shooting on Langside Street.
Police declined to comment on the shooting yesterday, but confirmed the suspects and victim were known to one another.
Both suspects and victim are also known to police.
Court documents say one of the suspects was on bail for drug offences in connection to an arrest in late 2006. He was set to go to trial Nov. 23.
Documents also show the victim was charged with auto theft as a youth in a case where a stolen Dodge Spirit being chased by police crashed into another vehicle on Nairn Avenue in October 2005.
The shooting happened before 8 p.m. in the 100-block of Langside. Reports said the victim had been shot on the street with a sawed-off .22-calibre rifle.
The victim remains in critical, but stable, condition in hospital.
In the past several years the Mad Cowz have been in conflict with the B-Side, a rival aboriginal-based gang in the city's West End.
Police did not comment on whether Wednesday's shooting was a continuation of that feud, which hit its most deadly three years ago with the gunning down of 14-year-old Mad Cowz associate Sirak Okbazion outside a Sherbrook Street crack house. Two men and two teens were charged with second-degree murder, but in a controversial plea deal last year three of them walked free. In exchange Lance William Laquette, 20, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 88 months in prison.
Since Okbazion's killing, Mad Cowz members have been involved in other street violence, including the high-profile October 2005 killing of Phil Haiart by a stray bullet.
One man -- a youth at the time -- was recently convicted by a jury of second-degree murder. But a second man, who allegedly pulled the trigger, walked free when the Crown's case collapsed in the middle of his trial.
The case crashed because of the refusal of Mad Cowz members to testify.
bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca
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