Man accused in picket-line assault has criminal record, mental-health issues

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This article was published 02/11/2023 (1002 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The man accused of assaulting Manitoba Public Insurance workers walking a picket line on Broadway earlier this week has severe mental-health issues, court records show.

Police arrested the 29-year-old man, who the Free Press is not naming, at about 9:20 a.m. Tuesday after he allegedly assaulted a 41-year-old man picketing with other striking workers. The strike has since ended.

The man has been charged with one count of assault. Shortly after the incident, a union spokesperson said three workers had been attacked.

“It looks like the 29-year-old approached a group of picketers, verbally confronted them — in particular our victim — and things quite simply escalated, where the suspect physically assaulted the victim, causing minor injuries,” Winnipeg Police Service spokesman Const. Jason Michalyshen said.

The man has a criminal conviction for arson with disregard for human life.

The November 2021 provincial court sentencing hearing on the charge provided insight into the accused’s background.

Crown prosecutor Kristee Logan told Judge Antonio Cellitti the man lit several stuffed animals and pieces of paper on fire in his suite in a building in the Point Douglas area in March 2020, then left.

Other residents fled. Firefighters contained the fire — which caused about $120,000 damage — to the man’s suite, Logan told Cellitti.

Logan, who was seeking a sentence of a year in jail and probation, told court the man made his way to the airport, where he told RCMP officers what he had done. He was eventually taken to Health Sciences Centre under the Mental Health Act, Logan said.

A pre-sentence report entered into the court record stated the man had set the fire while upset over a tumultuous relationship that had just ended.

The man had a difficult upbringing, the report showed, that involved placements in group homes and treatment centres because of his “unmanageable and aggressive behaviours,” Cellitti said.

He had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, chronic depression, oppositional defiant disorder, ADHD and generalized anxiety, the judge noted.

At the time of the 2021 hearing, the man told Cellitti, he was prescribed mood-stabilizing and anti-psychotic medications.

His defence lawyer, Matthew Munce, told Cellitti there had been discussions about trying to have the man found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder, or have the arson charge proceed through a specialized mental health court. Those defences were abandoned when he decided to plead guilty.

Cellitti sentenced the man to three years of supervised probation and imposed a 10-year court order banning him from owning weapons.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca