Police continue search for gunman

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/10/2010 (5186 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Police are still looking today for a masked gunman who killed two men and wounded a 13-year-old girl in north Winnipeg Saturday night.

A 14-year-old boy who narrowly missed a blast from a sawed-off shotgun got the closest look at the attacker, who is believed to be behind three shootings, which occurred within 45 minutes in the 200 block of Stella Walk, 400 block of Dufferin Avenue and the 400 block of Boyd Avenue.

"They do appear random," said police spokesman Const. Jason Michalyshen. "We have no motive."

The boy, who is a friend of the 13-year-old female victim, told the Free Press Sunday he was standing with a large group of youths in the area of Stella Walk when a stranger in black approached them. It was about 8:30 p.m.

"He walked up out of nowhere. He had his face covered and asked us if we wanted to buy some pot," said the 14-year-old witness, whose name the Free Press is not publishing to protect his safety.

The boy said they declined his offer — then watched in shock as the man pulled out what appeared to be a sawed-off shotgun and opened fire.

The 13-year-old girl was struck, according to unofficial reports, by one pellet, in her hip. The boy said he was grazed in the arm. "It went right through my sleeve and down my shorts, but didn’t hit me," he said.

The wounded teen and her friend ran away screaming, banging on the door of a neighbourhood home looking for help.

Across the street, another eyewitness saw the gunman arrive.

The woman said she witnessed the gunman stalking the group of teenagers seconds before gunfire hit the young girl. She said the masked figure was skinny, a man, about 5-8 and he had a bike with him when she first spotted him across the sidewalk from her suite on Stella Walk.

brightcove.createExperiences();

"He took a gun out from out of his waist," she said, and he held it behind his back as he approached the building and peered into the front window of the nearest suite, the one across from hers.

At that moment the teens showed up. The woman said they didn’t seem to notice the gunman — but he noticed them.

"That’s when he started following those people who were walking by and that’s when we heard the shots," the woman said. She heard two shots and right after that, the gunman turned back to the suite where he left his bike.

"He just walked back to the bike and he left. Usually people, they run, you know. This guy, this guy just walked like he was proud or something. He just left," the woman said.

At the suite next to the one the gunman allegedly peered into, a man said he heard the shots and from his window that overlooked the shooting scene, he saw a woman leaning over a body.

He also noticed the cyclist, but not a gun. "It was surprising, the person on the bike wasn’t zooming away. And he looked at this person (lying on the step) as he was driving away," the man said.

The 14-year-old boy agreed the shooter left on a bike. The boy and his companions all spent Saturday night at the Public Safety Building giving detailed statements to investigators. The boy said he has no idea who their attacker was or what set him off.

"I’ve never seen him before," he said, adding he never got a good look at his face because of the black covering on it. "He never said anything else to us."

Less than 10 minutes later, on Dufferin Avenue, he apparently struck again.

Lloyd Williams was watching the National League Championship Series.

"I had the baseball game on and I had the window open. I heard three gunshots; three quick gunshots," Williams said Sunday morning.

Williams headed for the front door, worried that his uncle, Alfred Cook, was outside and may have been hurt.

"My uncle was out front, smoking." Williams said. "I knew what it was. I’ve heard gunshots before. I knew it wasn’t firecrackers. I knew it was a gun."

Sure enough, Cook was directly across the street, smoking on a bench at the care-home entrance when he heard the gunfire.

"I was right here. And I heard three shots," the older man said. He didn’t look around; he has multiple sclerosis so he turned to the care home and deliberately placed one foot in front of the other. Two, three steps later and he was safe inside. "I didn’t want to get hit by a stray bullet," Cook said.

A man was killed at the Dufferin Avenue house.

At about 9:15 p.m., two shots were fired at 486 Boyd Ave. A neighbour, Colleen Hobbs, described seeing a man lying in the front yard minutes later, with emergency services personnel working over him.

"I heard two shots. Bang, bang. And I said to my husband, ‘What the hell is that?’ He came out to see what was going on and the next thing is they were pulling someone. He was in his yard, on the ground. And they were trying to resuscitate him."

Some neighbours said two men, perhaps a father and son, lived there. The younger of the two, a man in his 40s, was shot dead.

Police went door-to-door in the 400 block of Boyd to ask what people had seen or heard following the shooting. They blocked off a perimeter around the victim’s house with yellow crime tape and extended it to the back lane behind Boyd. The tape remained in place Sunday afternoon.

Police issued a rare alert Saturday night asking residents to be careful with their personal safety, but police said Sunday they didn’t want to create "panic" or an "unnecessary scare."

gabrielle.giroday@freepress.mb.ca alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca mikeoncrime.com

Mike McIntyre
Sports columnist

Mike McIntyre grew up wanting to be a professional wrestler. But when that dream fizzled, he put all his brawn into becoming a professional writer.

   Read full biography