Three charged in stabbing of Ukrainian refugee at The Forks

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This article was published 21/07/2022 (887 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two men and a youth have been arrested for the stabbing of a refugee from Ukraine at The Forks earlier this month.

After poring through hours of CCTV surveillance footage and interviewing witnesses, investigators were able to identify suspects and arrest them on Wednesday and Thursday, Winnipeg police said on Friday.

Two refugees from Ukraine were walking near the Canadian Museum for Human Rights when they told witnesses they had accidentally bumped into three men on July 1 at about 10:40 p.m.

Despite apologizing, both were bear sprayed and one was stabbed.

In a news release at the time, police said the 22-year-old stabbing victim was bleeding profusely with a life-threatening wound. Staff at Health Sciences Centre stabilized him after he arrived in critical condition, while his 23-year-old friend was treated and released.

A witness who assisted the men and visited them in hospital said they had arrived in Canada two weeks earlier and had moved into a downtown apartment on the day they were attacked.

“They told me they don’t want to be here anymore,” Julya Zan, who moved to Canada from Ukraine in 2010, told the Free Press. “They are looking at moving to another province. Their opinion about Manitoba and Winnipeg has definitely changed.”

Tyson Cole Steven Becherd and Jayden Kyle Martin, both 19, and a 15-year-old youth have been charged with several offences, including aggravated assault and assault with a weapon.

Becherd and Martin have no criminal convictions, according to court records, but each has been charged with an additional count of robbery in connection to an alleged July 15 incident.

All three were detained in custody.

The Canada Day stabbing was one of three violent attacks at The Forks within five days. In the earlier incidents, a father and daughter were attacked by three teenage girls at about 8 p.m. on June 27, and two men were stabbed at about 12:30 a.m. two days later, said police.

Four youths and two adults were arrested in the latter attack.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca