Former high school hoops star charged with attempted murder

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This article was published 24/05/2017 (3087 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A former high school basketball star has been charged with attempted murder.

Junior Sesay, 21, was the main suspect in an assault on a woman outside her West End home early Tuesday. Her condition was upgraded to stable Wednesday. RCMP arrested Sesay on Highway 10 while he was allegedly driving south toward the United States border in a stolen vehicle and turned him over to Winnipeg police.

Police also charged Sesay with robbery and break-and-enter in connection with the West End assault that nearly killed the 20-year-old victim, believed to be his younger brother’s girlfriend.

The Winnipeg Police Service briefly acknowledged Sesay’s athletic pedigree in releasing details of the arrest.

Sesay and his younger brother, Will Sesay, were basketball stars who went on to attend university. Junior committed to the University of Victoria and Will to the University of Winnipeg, where he played on the men’s Wesmen team. Junior spent two seasons at the University of Victoria and returned to the Wesmen. He left before Christmas due to a disciplinary matter, Basketball Manitoba executive director Adam Wedlake said.

“The basketball community is devastated,” Wedlake said Wednesday. “Our thoughts are with the victim and her family and with the Wesmen basketball teams as they cope with this tragedy.”

Both brothers made headlines in 2011-12 for their moves on the court, their adjustment to life in Canada and their resiliency. They immigrated with their mother from the war-torn west African nation of Sierra Leone in 2003, when Junior was seven.

A year later, they learned their dad had been gunned down and Junior changed his first name from Mahmoud to honour his dad. Junior was his dad’s name, he told reporters years ago, and the name became part of his tribute to the dad who never made it out of the country caught in endless conflict. The pair were basketball champs with the Oak Park Raiders.

The attack was described to reporters as “particularly horrific.”

“There was a sense of relief when her condition was upgraded to stable,” Winnipeg Police Service spokesman Const. Rob Carver told reporters.

The attack was reported about 2:35 a.m. Tuesday, initially as a break-in at a home in the 900 block of Dominion Street, quickly followed by an assault outside the home. A passerby tried to intervene but was chased off, police said.

“The suspect, armed with a knife, then stole the passerby’s vehicle and fled,” police said.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca