People rush to help victim after West Broadway shooting

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This article was published 14/06/2021 (1585 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two passersby, who happened to be nurses, rushed to perform CPR on a man who had been shot in the back near a girls school in West Broadway Monday afternoon.

A witness who lives in the area said he heard at least four shots ring out.

“I thought it was firecrackers. Then I thought, no,” he told the Free Press.

The witness saw a black vehicle peel away from the scene at Young and Balmoral streets, across from Balmoral Hall School around 3:45 p.m.

Police then arrived and began medical treatment on the victim. By 4:15 p.m., around 15 officers, including tactical officers, remained on the scene and blocked off the area to pedestrians and drivers while taking witness statements from people who had been in the area.

On Young Street, a piece of black clothing that the witness said was cut off of the victim by police remained in the street.

The witness said one of the nurses said the man wasn’t breathing, and paramedics arrived around 15 minutes after that.

“There was a lot of blood,” he said. “It was a bad scene – he was bloody on his face and on his back, and there’s still a lot of blood on the street.”

He called the experience “terrifying,” noting it was only the second time he had heard gunshots in the decade he has lived in the neighbourhood.

“Everybody around was so traumatized,” he said. “They were trying so hard to help him.”

In a tweet, police warned parents not to pick up their daughters because the school was in lockdown. Police advised that no children had been hurt in the drive-by shooting. The lockdown ended at approximately 4:30 p.m.

Police issued a news release to say no information about the identity of the victim or his condition was available. The police gave no further comment after being contacted by the Free Press.

One resident of the nearby Sheridan apartment building at 33 Balmoral St. said she heard multiple gunshots and a woman scream. Inside her apartment, she immediately ducked. By the time she looked out her window, the victim was receiving medical treatment.

She said she was shaken and wasn’t accustomed to a violent event taking place so close to where she lives.

“I’m taking it in right now,” she said. “It’s very scary to see that so close outside.”

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca