Police saying little after two men wounded in machete fight Sunday night

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This article was published 16/07/2018 (2968 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg police are mum about a street fight likely involving a machete near the corner of Sherbrook Street and Westminster Avenue Sunday night that put two men in hospital, one in critical condition, the other unstable.

The morning sun was drying a pool of blood, water and soap in front of the Charisma of India restaurant on Sherbrook Street Monday morning.

Mike Williams, the owner of the adjacent business Korner Stop, said his employee shut down the store at 11 p.m. after police arrived. His employee told him that there was a machete attack. The two victims have since been upgraded to stable condition.

Williams said there were towels soaked with blood on the Sherbrook Street strip.

Metish Trivedi, owner of Charisma, said his employee called him at about 10:30 p.m. and said there was a man bleeding from a gash on his arm right in front of the restaurant. The attacks happened in or around the intersection of Sherbrook and Westminster, he said.

Trivedi went to his restaurant and called 911. He could see the man’s bone through the gash in his upper arm. The man was disoriented and drunk or on drugs, Trivedi said.

Spattered blood was visible up and down the east side of Sherbrook Street from in front of the strip mall where Charisma is located up to Computech Camera Repair about a block north.

A man panhandling for change was sitting near a larger area of spattered blood in front of Westminster Chiropractic Clinic across the street from the strip mall.

Alexa Bereznycky was driving eastbound on Westminster Avenue with a friend at about 12:30 a.m. Monday; there were several police vehicles in the intersection of Westminister and Sherbrook, which was blocked off with yellow police tape.

Bereznycky noticed more police cars further south at the Maryland Bridge, which also appeared to be blocked off on the north side of the river.

Trivedi, who works from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., was livid Monday while he used bleach to clean a pool of blood from the curb in front of his restaurant’s front door.

“Why do we have to deal with this?” he asked angrily, referring to crime in West Broadway. “We work hard and this is what happens.”

He said he’s tired of paying thousands of dollars in property taxes for his business when the neighbourhood is growing more unsafe by the day.

“Businesses need protection,” he said. “Politicians need to take charge.”

Williams, who has worked the counter at Korner Stop since the early 1980s, said the West Broadway area has been getting more dangerous of late following several years of improvements.

“I don’t know what happened,” he said, referring to crime in the area.

Winnipeg police, who have received so many different accounts of what happened that they aren’t sure what the facts are, are releasing few details a spokeswoman said.

“It’s a vague incident,” she said.

Police haven’t released the names or ages of the two victims, who are both adult men, or the number of people involved in the fight. A vehicle collision was somehow involved, but police aren’t saying how. And they would not confirm that the weapon used was a machete.

Investigators with the major crimes unit are asking anyone with information to contact them at 204-986-6219 or Crime Stoppers at 204-786-TIPS ( 204-786-8477).

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca