String of bear spray incidents ‘may be related’: police

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This article was published 19/02/2023 (934 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg police are investigating a string of violent incidents involving bear spray in the city’s West End and downtown that may have been related.

University of Winnipeg officials said a student was injured after he or she was confronted near the McFeetors Hall residence on Langside Street just north of Portage Avenue at around 10 a.m. Sunday morning.

“The Winnipeg Police Service are searching for the two assailants, and the injured individual is receiving medical attention. As an immediate precaution, security on campus has been enhanced at building entry points,” the university said in a social media post.

Police spokesman Const. Claude Chancy said the university incident is among the reports of assaults police are investigating as possibly connected.

“We just cannot confirm that they are in fact related at this point,” the spokesman stressed.

Chancy said he was unable to confirm exactly how many reports police received, but there were multiple within a short distance of each other in the West End and downtown from around 6 a.m. to early afternoon, which “would definitely draw our attention to the possibility that these events may be related.”

He did not say how many people had been reported injured or exactly where the other incidents occurred.

City police in cruiser cars drove up and down streets and lane ways adjacent to the university throughout the afternoon, while youth sports players with their parents came and went from the recreation centre on campus.

Midday on Sunday, 17-year-old Enzo Yinzhuo was among a group of students from University of Winnipeg Collegiate — the private high school run by the university — trying to find out what exactly had occurred, after they had received an alert on a campus security app.

He and the group of students, who were sitting in the lobby of McFeetors Hall, said they had not seen the police response that morning.

“I was sleeping (when the alert came),” said Yinzhuo. “I want to find out what happened.”

He added that he has only been a student at the school, and living in residence, for three months, but has felt safe in the short time he’s been there.

Yinzhuo said he hoped to speak with someone from the university about the Sunday morning incident.

Chancy said mid-morning that police were actively searching for two male suspects believed to be involved. Late in the afternoon, he confirmed no one had been arrested.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @erik_pindera