Winnipeg homicide spike puts spotlight on ‘ultimate victimization’

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This article was published 23/06/2021 (1614 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s been a bloody month in Winnipeg, with 11 homicides in just 33 days.

It is a startling number, featuring a crime that is statistically rare, says a local criminologist with decades of experience in the justice system.

“You don’t get very consistent patterns, it can be all over the place, but often it will average out over a year,” University of Winnipeg Prof. Michael Weinrath said Wednesday.

He pointed to month-long spates of deadly violence in 2019 as an example of the statistical phenomenon. That year, 44 people were killed in the city, its highest number on record.

Weinrath noted violent crime rates overall were much worse in Winnipeg when he began research 24 years ago. However, homicide rates have consistently gone up.

“There’s something about homicide — the fact that it’s sort of the ultimate victimization, it’s a terrible thing to happen to anyone — it definitely impacts the public’s psyche more than other sorts of crimes,” he said.

“It’s hard to believe that someone shoots at someone, or someone stabs someone with a knife, or strangles them, or hits them with a baseball bat but are not intending to really hurt them. It’s a willful act; it’s somebody really trying to do harm… Most of us never think of doing anything like that.”

The recent spate of violence began May 19, when Derek Scott Sutton, 37, was found severely injured outside a residence on Beverly Street in the West End. He and a man he knew got into an argument that led to an assault with a weapon, police said.

Sutton died in hospital. Police arrested Justin Patrick Monro, 27, and charged him with second-degree murder.

The next day, the Winnipeg Police Service confirmed a man found dead in a Burrows Avenue home days earlier — Trevor Clayton Dorion, 33 — was a victim of homicide. No one has yet been arrested.

On May 21, a daylight fight near Portage Place shopping centre put a man in hospital in critical condition.

Thomas Earl Cameron, 30, died in hospital, but after a police investigation and the insight of a senior Crown attorney, no homicide charges were laid. Police said what would otherwise be an unlawful act was committed in self-defence, which was considered reasonable under the circumstances.

Two days later, Princeton Xavier Linden Upshaw, 30, died following an afternoon assault on the 100 block of Henry Avenue. No one has yet been arrested.

On May 25, Stuart Bruce Fritzley, 35, was injured on the 800 block of Magnus Avenue around 6 a.m. He was taken to hospital in critical condition, but later died. Police haven’t yet made an arrest.

Logan Harold Flett, 29, was stabbed in an apartment on the 500 block of Elgin Avenue and died in hospital May 28. Police said an argument between brothers turned violent. Russell John Adam Flett, 32, is charged with manslaughter.

There was then a lull in deadly violence in the city.

However, on June 10, a 48-year-old man was shot on the 300 block of Kennedy Street, shortly after midnight. Marlon Jose Chamorro-Gonzales died in hospital. Michael Theodore Jay Edwards, 27, was arrested two days later and charged with second-degree murder.

On June 14, Kyle Anthony Braithwaite, 29, was shot in the back in broad daylight near Balmoral Hall School. He died the next day. A community outreach worker deemed his slaying a targeted hit between rival gangs. No arrests have yet been announced.

The next morning, 82-year-old George Birch was hit with a vehicle while he tried to stop a break-in on Logan Avenue and Tecumseh Street, police said. Matthew Jacob Hildebrand, 22, is charged with manslaughter, breaking and entering, and failing to stop after an accident resulting in death.

On June 16. Adam Albert Laforrest, 33, died in hospital after he was assaulted at Main Street and Dufferin Avenue. He had been released on bail after a drug raid arrest a month earlier. Daniel Pelletier-Monkman, 24, is charged with second-degree murder; Carla Bridgette Duck, 38, is charged with manslaughter.

On June 18, Sanchez Boulanger, 12, was stabbed to death after what police and witnesses described as an altercation between two groups on Burrows Avenue near Main Street. Shania Pirrie, 19, stands accused of manslaughter; one of her family members spoke publicly, deeming the death “self-defence.”

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca