Manitoba Housing tenant, stabbed while assisting police, threatened with eviction
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/07/2018 (2359 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
A Manitoba Housing tenant was threatened with eviction for “verbal harassment” in a letter slipped under his door just a week after he was stabbed while helping Winnipeg police nab a break-and-enter suspect.
On July 1 at around 10:45 p.m., police arrived at Lord Selkirk Park Towers after receiving a break-and-enter call.
Tom Kowalsky was just about to go up to his suite on the fifth floor after taking his dog for a walk, when an officer told him to stay outside.
Five minutes later, while Kowalsky stood with a neighbour on the south-side corner of the apartment block at 269 Dufferin Ave., a man burst out of a basement door, leapt up the staircase and sprinted into the courtyard. Police officers — 10 or 11 of them, Kowalsky said — weren’t far behind.
But the courtyard is dark at night — lights were burnt out and the suspect likely knew the area, Kowalsky said.
(A provincial spokeswoman in charge of the Manitoba Housing file said two burnt-out lights were changed Thursday morning, and emailed images of the repairs to the Free Press after it contacted the province Wednesday.)
Police shot the suspect with a Taser electroshock weapon in the courtyard. Kowalsky said the man tore out the Taser darts, got up and kept running. (The Winnipeg Police Service confirmed officers used a Taser that night.)
When Kowalsky saw the suspect running full-bore toward him, and possible escape to Dufferin Avenue, he made a split-second decision. As the man ran by, Kowalsky bodychecked him.
The man went down, but he came up with the blade. Kowalsky said he saw the glint of the knife in the dark before he was slashed across the ribs. He felt his side and his finger poked into the bleeding gash.
“I’m not afraid to die, but I’m just not ready.”–Tom Kowalsky
“I’m not afraid to die, but I’m just not ready,” Kowalsky said this week, recalling the incident — one he has relived in his head over and over again.
Police, not far behind, hit the suspect with the Taser again and cuffed him. He was later charged with breaking and entering, assault with a weapon and possessing a weapon, among other charges. (Police wouldn’t say whether Kowalsky aided them in the arrest, but did confirm he checked the suspect to the ground.)
In the aftermath, police rushed to his aid, Kowalsky said. He was taken to hospital after police performed first aid.
On July 3, Kowalsky saw something he believes is a signal for drug dealers: a pair of shoes strung over a tree branch next to the entrance the assailant had run from.
Winnipeg police told the Free Press that’s just an urban myth, but Kowalsky was worried. He went to talk to the property manager while she was having a cigarette outside the housing complex, he said.
He’s been trying to get Manitoba Housing to address safety concerns at the complex that’s home to families young and old for years, he said. (A provincial spokeswoman said Manitoba Housing has made large investments into security at Lord Selkirk Park and 269 Dufferin Ave. since early 2016.)
However, the property manager wouldn’t listen to his concerns, he said. Rather than continue talking, the slight, 5-9 man told her to enjoy her cigarette because she clearly didn’t care, he said.
Days later, Manitoba Housing slipped a letter under the door of Kowalsky’s fifth-floor apartment. He was threatened with eviction, if he ever “verbally harassed” and intimidated a Manitoba Housing employee again, based on a tenant agreement.
The Free Press obtained a copy of the letter, which states he made and disrespectful remarks to a Manitoba Housing staffer.
“I’d been stabbed, you know, and I’m standing there with a bandage and blood loss, how could I possibly have been aggressive?” Kowalsky said. “She flipped it around.”
A dangerous area
Manitoba Housing’s Lord Selkirk Park Towers and the surrounding townhouses can be a dangerous place.
In 2016, there were 26 homicides in the city, according to Winnipeg Police Service records. The city’s north police district, where the housing complex at 269 Dufferin Ave. is located, was the site of 12 of those deaths.
Manitoba Housing’s Lord Selkirk Park Towers and the surrounding townhouses can be a dangerous place.
In 2016, there were 26 homicides in the city, according to Winnipeg Police Service records. The city’s north police district, where the housing complex at 269 Dufferin Ave. is located, was the site of 12 of those deaths.
In the same year, the impoverished neighbourhood racked up 518 reported assaults with a weapon.
Lord Selkirk Park Towers’ south-side staircase smells dank — like cleaning products mixed with urine and mould. Under the stairwell, someone’s written love notes next to the gang tags.
On the fifth floor, some of the hallway’s fluorescent lights flicker. Someone carved "510" in the paint on the cinder-block wall across from the elevator — resident Tom Kowalsky said he thinks that’s a signal to drug buyers, meaning they can get their fix in suite No. 510, just down the hall.
He said he regularly sees people drinking beer in the hallways — people he thinks aren’t tenants. He regularly observes people gain access to the keycarded building by waiting for someone to buzz the door and sneaking in behind them, he said.
The on-site security isn’t much help, Kowalsky said, sharing a photo with the Free Press that appears to show a security guard sitting, texting on his phone, when Kowalsky entered the building around 10:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Kowalsky said two unknown men snuck in the building behind him, right before he took the photo.
A Manitoba Housing spokeswoman said the authority no longer receives regular complaints about security in the complex since changes made in early 2016, although it did prior. When housing receives complaints about security providers, the authority pursues corrective action if needed, she said.
One on-site security guard was replaced following an unspecified complaint in the past year, she said.
On Wednesday afternoon, a Free Press reporter and a photographer observed two men who Kowalsky suspected were drug dealers — or gang members — standing in the doorway of the housing complex. Elderly people were in the tenant lounge adjacent to the door. There’s a daycare on the north side of the building.
It’s been relatively quiet in the Lord Selkirk Park Towers area in recent years, apart from Kowalsky’s brush with death, media reports and police news release archives suggest.
That was not true in the past.
On Jan. 7, 2011, police found a man bleeding on the fifth floor of the apartment building. He later died in hospital — Winnipeg’s first homicide that year.
In January 2010, a man was stabbed on an adjacent corner — he was rushed to hospital and survived.
In July 2010, Darren Walsh, 24, was shot multiple times at the bus shack at Main Street and Euclid Avenue, a few blocks from the housing complex. He died on the street corner, in front of his girlfriend.
In October, 2010, a 13-year-old girl was shot in the abdomen while walking with friends on the 200 block of Stella Avenue, in an apparently random shooting. She survived.
The neighbourhood of Lord Selkirk Park is Winnipeg’s poorest. According to recent City of Winnipeg and Statistics Canada census data, the unemployment rate is 18.7 per cent. The median household income is just $15,552.
— Erik Pindera
Kowalsky grew up in the North End — his grandparents and parents lived in the area, too. He worked at R.B. Russell Vocational High School for 13 years.
“Every gene in my gene pool is within a stone’s throw of where I live, I raised my kids in this neighborhood,” Kowalsky said. “I still have kids calling me by name and telling me their story as I walk down the street. Why should I leave?”
Manitoba Housing wouldn’t comment on specifics, citing privacy concerns, but did say it has a different version of the interaction between Kowalsky and the property manager. The spokeswoman added the authority doesn’t want to engage in conflict resolution in the media.
Further, she said there is contract security on-site, seven days a week, 12 hours day, with round-the-clock access to mobile Manitoba Housing security, foot patrols by Housing and contract security and a property-wide camera and lighting system.
Kowalsky said he’s never seen a foot patrol in his building.
erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca
Erik Pindera
Reporter
Erik Pindera reports for the city desk, with a particular focus on crime and justice.
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History
Updated on Friday, July 13, 2018 8:26 PM CDT: Fixes typo
