Accused in lengthy police chase involved in 2008 fatal crash

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This article was published 26/04/2023 (917 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg man accused of leading city police and Mounties on a recent lengthy stolen-car chase was involved in two prominent stolen-vehicle collisions as a youth — including a high-profile crash that killed a cab driver in 2008.

The 31-year-old was arrested at about 1 a.m. Monday, after he allegedly led police officers from the North End to downtown to a ditch in Portage la Prairie in a stolen Chevrolet Silverado, in a pursuit that lasted more than an hour.

At least two officers suffered minor injuries when their vehicle was rammed near Fort Street and Broadway, the Winnipeg Police Service said Tuesday.

The man has been charged with 13 criminal offences, none of which have been proven in court.

However, the accused — who the Free Press is not naming in order to report details of his youth record — has a significant past involving motor vehicle theft.

“(The accused) has not gotten the message when the court has warned him of the consequences of driving. He has not gotten the message when victims in court have communicated to him that he should stop stealing cars,” a Crown prosecutor told a provincial judge at a 2021 sentencing hearing.

“Lawyers, I’m sure, have told him that he should slow down his stealing or his offending behavior, especially as it relates to motor vehicles.”

The man pleaded guilty in March 2011 to criminal negligence causing death for driving a stolen Hummer SUV into 47-year-old Zdzislaw Andrzejczak’s vehicle at the corner of Andrews Street and Alfred Avenue in December 2009, court records show.

Andrzejczak, a mechanic and father of one who had immigrated from Poland, died about 40 minutes later, his son Kamil said Tuesday.

The accused had turned 18 in July 2009, and was sentenced to about 4 1/2 years in custody, along with a 15-year driving ban upon his release.

In June 2008, he pleaded guilty to being one of seven teens riding in a stolen Chevrolet Silverado truck that was racing a stolen SUV (carrying another seven youth) in Winnipeg the night of March 29, 2008.

The SUV ran a red light on Portage Avenue and Maryland Street at 138 km/h and slammed into a taxi — killing cab driver Antonio Lanzellotti and seriously injuring its passenger.

The stolen truck had peeled off on a side street moments before the fatal crash. At the time, police identified the now 31-year-old accused as the driver of the truck.

He was given 72 days in custody, and two years of supervised probation, for his involvement in those events.

At a January 2021 provincial court sentencing hearing for theft of a motor vehicle (committed Aug. 4, 2019), Crown attorney Valérie Hébert highlighted the accused’s history on city streets.

“Since 2011, and along with his younger years, he’s got quite the lengthy history of motor vehicle-related theft offences. He remains a clear risk to the public, both from a deterrent standpoint and a public safety standpoint. (The accused) is an individual who is in need of a lengthy custodial period,” Hébert told Judge Kelly Moar.

“He is a person whom we have given a second chance, and I say this because after his lengthy period in the penitentiary in relation to the 2011 entry, after he killed someone while driving a stolen vehicle, he proceeded to… re-engage in the exact same behavior.”

Defence attorney Kaitlynn Porath noted the man was not driving the vehicle in the Aug. 4, 2019, incident, instead describing it as an attempted theft in which he pried a window down.

Porath added the court was not to punish the man again for past offences.

Further details were not revealed during the 2021 sentencing hearing.

His defence lawyer told court about the man’s traumatic background and unstable upbringing, rife with Gladue factors, which courts must consider when sentencing Indigenous offenders.

He is originally from Little Grand Rapids First Nation, but grew up in Winnipeg, with his grandmother and in Child and Family Services care.

The man witnessed violence between his parents during his formative years, Porath said. “His whole youth was really characterized by violence.”

At the time of the 2021 hearing, he was in a drug treatment program at Headingley jail.

The Crown sought a sentence of nine months to a year in jail, considering time served. The defence asked for 120 days, considering time served, amounting to about 30 days.

Moar sentenced him 37 days, considering time served.

A further review of court records show the man was convicted in December 2020 of a motor vehicle theft committed Aug. 8, 2019.

In March 2021, he pleaded guilty to mischief under $5,000 (involving a motor vehicle) committed June 28, 2019. That same day, he pleaded guilty to possessing property obtained by crime — a motor vehicle — committed Aug. 5, 2019.

He was also convicted of multiple administrative breaches, obstructing or resisting a peace officer, and possessing a firearm contrary to a prohibition order in 2020, for offences committed the prior year.

erik.pindera@winnipegfreepress.com