News briefs for May 25, 2022

A man is in unstable condition in hospital after he was shot in St. Vital early today.

Officers found the man when they were called to the 500 block of St. Mary’s Road, near Essex Avenue, shortly after 5:30 a.m., Winnipeg police spokesman Const. Jay Murray said.

The man, who is in his 20s, was initially taken to hospital in critical condition.

Northbound St. Mary’s has reopened to traffic.

Several evidence markers were placed at the intersection of St. Mary’s and Essex and in a gravel parking lot behind a back lane.

The Winnipeg Police Service’s major crimes unit is investigating the shooting. The WPS is asking anyone with information about the case to call 204-986-6219 or Crime Stoppers at 204-786-TIPS (8477).

Go_A, an electro-funk group that represented Ukraine at the Eurovision song competition in 2021, will headline the Winnipeg International Jazz Festival’s showcase event June 17 at the Burton Cummings Theatre.

The Kyiv-based group finished fifth in the contest with their song Shum, and the dance hit rose to No. 20 on Billboard’s dance charts in the U.S. and has since garnered almost 65 million listens on Spotify.

Opening will be Toronto-based Balaklava Blues, the husband-wife combo of Marichka and Mark Marczyk, Ukrainian-Canadians who perform Ukrainian folk songs to electronic-music rhythms.

Tickets go on sale May 27 at 10 a.m. at Ticketmaster, with prices ranging from $29.50 to $34.50.

The jazz festival takes place between June 14-19, with its opening two nights taking place at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

Winnipeg author Clayton Thomas-Müller is among the five finalists in the running for the $10,000 John W. Dafoe Book Prize.

The prize is presented annually to a non-fiction book whose subject matter looks at Canada, Canadians and the Canadian nation in international affairs. It’s named after John Wesley Dafoe, editor of the Manitoba Free Press/Winnipeg Free Press from 1901-1944.

Thomas-Müller’s book Life in the City of Dirty Water: A Memoir of Healing is up against Barry Gough’s Possessing Meares Island: A Historian’s Journey into the Past of Clayoquot Sound, Daniel R. Meister’s The Racial Mosaic: A Pre-history of Canadian Multiculturalism, Peter Price’s Questions of Order: Confederation and the Making of Modern Canada and Donald B. Smith’s Seen but Not Seen: Influential Canadians and the First Nations from the 1840s to Today.

The winner will be named in mid-June, and will be invited to give a talk in Winnipeg in the fall.

Winnipeg police seized multiple loaded guns, cocaine, methamphetamine and $30,000 cash when raiding a Springfield South home Tuesday. 

Police began investigating drug trafficking allegedly involving people at the residence on the 1400 block of Molson Street earlier in May. 

Police seized two loaded shotguns, a loaded Glock pistol and a loaded, 3D print handgun, as well as holsters, body armour, five ounces of crack and two grams of crack, 33 grams of meth, cutting agent, the cash and drug packaging materials. 

Cody Latrace, 29, of Winnipeg, is charged with 22 firearms and drug trafficking offences. He’s in custody. Mick Mikolajcyzk, 31, of Winnipeg, is charged with 20 firearm and drug trafficking offences. A 23-year-old Winnipeg woman, whose name hasn’t been released, faces 17 charges. She was released on an undertaking.

The Manitoba Métis Federation is investing $14.8 million in affordable seniors housing and commercial space in the city of Selkirk.

The six-storey development will be on Eveline Street, alongside property the MMF owns. The building will have 49 rental units at both affordable and market rates.

Some of the commercial space will be used for MMF-operated support services for elders.

The project is expected to be completed in fall 2024. 

A year after 27-year-old Jasmine Normand was found in a Maryland Street apartment block near Wellington Avenue, Normand’s alleged killer has been arrested. 

Normand was found May 10, 2021 and police quickly determined her death was a homicide. Later, the homicide unit identified a suspect. 

On Tuesday, police arrested Sabrina Mary Louise Favel, 31, of Winnipeg, at a home in Daniel McIntyre. Homicide investigators have now revealed they believe Favel and the victim, who were acquaintances, had an altercation that led to Normand’s slaying. 

Favel is charged with manslaughter and has been detained. 

An 18-year-old man from Deloraine died after he was hit by a vehicle outside of Brandon.

RCMP said officers from the Blue Hills detachment responded to the collision on Provincial Road 459, near Road 115N, about eight kilometres west of Brandon at 6:30 p.m. Sunday. 

When they arrived, other emergency workers told Mounties the driver, an 18-year-old Brandon woman, had been extricated from the vehicle and taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The 18-year-old man was found near the vehicle and pronounced dead. 

The RCMP’s initial investigation has determined the man was on the side of the road when the vehicle drove onto a curve, losing control and hitting the man, before rolling into the ditch. Local Mounties and a forensic collision reconstructionist are still investigating. 

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers have released receiver Jalen Saunders, the team announced early Wednesday.

Saunders was considered a key off-season signing for the Bombers, expected to be an important contributor on offence after the departure of receivers Kenny Lawler and Darvin Adams. There were concerns about his health, after the 29-year-old suffered a serious knee injury in 2018 — the last time he played in a game — followed by car accident that almost claimed his life and further delayed his return to football.

The Bombers didn’t comment on why Saunders was released, but an update will be provided later today following the end of Wednesday’s training camp session.

St. Matthews Avenue has reopened to traffic between Sherburn and Ingersoll streets after a collision.

The Winnipeg Police Service advised the public to avoid the area in a tweet sent at 6:13 a.m.

The WPS tweeted at 7:33 a.m. that the area had reopened.