Two killed, six injured in three shooting incidents in little more than one day

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This article was published 07/03/2023 (915 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Eight people have been hit by gunfire — two fatally — in three Winnipeg shootings in a span of roughly 29 hours.

At about 6 a.m. Tuesday, city police found two women with gunshot wounds in the lane behind the 400 block of Beverley Street.

The first, whose name and age had not yet been released as police had not yet notified family, was found dead at the scene. The second was taken to hospital in unstable condition.

The woman’s death was the seventh homicide in Winnipeg this year. As of Tuesday afternoon, no arrests had been made, police said.

Bernhard, who owns a home on directly adjacent Toronto Street and didn’t want his last name used, said he woke to several loud bangs at around 5:15 a.m.

“I suddenly heard, just really fast, three bangs in a row, and I looked around… the house and didn’t notice, didn’t see anything,” the 32-year-old said. “Then when I woke up again at around 6:30 (a.m.) to get up for work, the police were out in the back.”

At mid-day Tuesday, part of the ice-slicked lane between Ellice and St. Matthews avenues in the West End was blocked off with yellow caution tape as officers sat watch.

A bullet casing sat on the lane, before forensics officers arrived and combed through the alleyway, placing yellow evidence markers at points on the road and windrows.

Several hours earlier, at 2:15 a.m., police were called to a quadruple shooting at the corner of Spence Street and Cumberland Avenue in the Spence neighbourhood.

Police said three of the victims were found in a suite on Spence Street while the fourth victim was located nearby. Major crimes investigators are probing the incident and had announced no arrests.

The victims are two men in their 20s and two men in their 30s; three were in stable condition, while one remains in guarded condition, police said.

A few blocks away, a 40-year-old man witnessed police and paramedics pull up to a Notre Dame Avenue laundromat at about 2:30 a.m., when he and his wife had stepped outside for a cigarette.

The witness said they saw emergency responders working on a man bleeding from multiple wounds, who was laid out on a table. He shared photos of the chaotic emergency medical scene with the Free Press.

“They cut the pants off of him and you could see the holes. They were talking on their radios, saying that they have a male victim with gunshot wounds,” said the man, who asked his name not be used out of safety concerns.

Police would not confirm if that man was the fourth Spence Street shooting victim.

Jamie Stagg, 43, lives on the second floor of the six-suite, three-storey grey building where three of the Spence Street victims were found. He was up watching television when he heard a noise like a faulty vehicle on the adjacent street or someone dropping something in an apartment above him.

“It didn’t sound like a shot or anything… I didn’t really think anything of it,” said Stagg.

Then, emergency sirens wailed and police rushed to the building about 15 minutes later.

“Eight cop cars come here, two fire trucks and an ambulance,” said Stagg, who saw the emergency responders go to the suite at the rear of the building on the ground floor.

He said the tenants in the ground-floor suite had moved in only a few months prior. Windows of the ground-floor suite were smashed, which Stagg said had happened a few days prior to the shooting.

Caution tape was wrapped around the back of the building, where a cruiser car and unmarked police van sat parked mid-day Tuesday.

Stagg said he suspected the suite was home to drug dealers, because of the near-constant coming-and-going of people who would stay for only a few minutes at a time.

Early Monday, a 15-year-old boy was shot and killed and his 17-year-old brother wounded in the St. James neighbourhood. The dead boy was identified by family as Phoenix Thompson.

The homicide occurred at about 1 a.m. on the 200 block of Amherst Street, between Portage and Bruce avenues. Police have announced no arrests.

St. James-Assiniboia School Division acting superintendent Jenness Moffatt said Tuesday: “We confirm that two of our SJASD students were involved in a serious incident resulting in injury and death… We are devastated by this news. Our hearts go out to the families of the victims involved… We have also reached out to families involved to offer our support.”

On Tuesday, police did not say if any of the shootings were related to gangs or drugs, nor if any of the incidents were connected.

Winnipeg Police Service spokeswoman Const. Dani McKinnon said the rash of shootings is tough on police resources.

“General patrol resources are taxed initially as first response,” she said in an email. “Specialty units such as homicide, major crimes and the forensic identification unit take over and continue these investigations, which are lengthy and very detail oriented.”

Police have asked anyone with information to call the homicide unit at 204-986-6805 or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 204-786-8477.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @erik_pindera