Teen victim in city’s latest killing

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This article was published 28/07/2021 (1712 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Garbage and clothing were strewn Wednesday morning near trash bins in the back lane at a convenience store on Salter Street near Flora Avenue, amid stains that appeared to be blood spatters.

The debris was behind yellow tape, where a patrol car manned by two Winnipeg Police Service officers watched over the scene of the city’s latest homicide.

Police were called to the scene for an assault behind the store shortly after 1 a.m.

Officers found two injured males: a 17-year-old and a 30-year-old. Both were taken to hospital. The teen later died; the man is in stable condition.

The WPS identification unit had arrived by mid-morning, with officers placing evidence markers on the debris strewn in the alley. Homicide detectives are probing the circumstances of the slaying, but no arrests have been announced, police said.

Antro, who has lived nearby for more than a decade and declined to give his surname, said he was up at 1 a.m. but didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. However, arguments in that section of back lane are frequent, he said.

“There’s always screams,” he said, noting people often walk up and down the lane to the 24-hour convenience store. “People insulting each other and screaming, it’s common — it’s extremely common.

“I feel for all the misery… and I feel for this person,” Antro said of the teen victim, adding he thinks there isn’t the political will to help stem violence in the neighbourhood. “Most of the people here have normal lives.”

Antro, for one, has a hulking guard dog, he says has chased people from his yard more than once.

The teen’s death marks Winnipeg’s 23rd homicide of 2021, and the second in four days.

Tyler McKay, 20, was stabbed and killed July 24 after an argument outside of a house party on the 400 block of Toronto Street. Jordan Julius Irving, 29, has been charged with manslaughter.

By this time last year, 27 people had been slain in Winnipeg. The city’s 2020 total was 42 homicide victims — just two less than the 44 logged in 2019, most in a single year on record.

 

Elsewhere, police kept a large section of Provencher Boulevard blocked off in both directions between Des Meurons and Langevin streets during the Wednesday morning rush until about 10 a.m.

Officers were called to a serious assault on the 300 block of Provencher at about 4:35 a.m., police said, but released little other information.

WPS evidence markers littered the street there. A shoe and clothing was seen next to a light stand adjacent to the crosswalk at St. Jean Baptiste Street and Provencher Boulevard. A uniformed officer carried evidence bags down the street, including one that appeared to contain a wooden stake.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca