Bloody Sunday in city

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This article was published 28/10/2019 (1922 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Blood was spilled in three separate incidents during a horrific, crime-filled weekend in Winnipeg, claiming three lives and sending five others to hospital with serious injuries.

One of the deceased is a 14-year-old girl; one of the wounded is a child under the age of two.

Winnipeg’s homicide total for 2019 now sits at 36. The highest total on record is 41 in 2011.

“Every single homicide is a tragedy for this city, for the community, for the family and friends who knew the person. Some are worse than others. I think a 14-year-old being murdered is absolutely horrible. It kind of took my breath away,” Winnipeg Police Service spokesman Const. Rob Carver said.

“I think a 14-year-old being murdered is absolutely horrible. It kind of took my breath away.” – Winnipeg Police Service Const. Rob Carver

The carnage began around 10:45 p.m. Saturday when a Halloween house party on the 100 block of Kinver Avenue turned deadly.

Lucy Pirrie, who lives next door to the home, said when she heard the sound of screaming, she knew something was terribly wrong. She looked out her window and she saw a bunch of teenage girls huddled in the cold, dressed in costumes.

Soon, multiple police vehicles and ambulances would descend on the scene. Up above, the blades of AIR-1, the WPS helicopter, could be heard chopping through the air.

Since it was cold, Pirrie invited the girls to come inside her home. That’s when they began to tell her what had happened next door.

“All of them had little bits of the story. Somebody sprayed bear mace. And in the chaos that’s when the people were stabbed,” Pirrie said.

“The one girl had blood all over her costume, her hair. She had been trying to help the girl who passed.”

Pirrie said she was told a small gathering of teenage friends turned into a party with roughly 20 people. A young girl threw the get-together while watching over her father’s home.

“All of them had little bits of the story. Somebody sprayed bear mace. And in the chaos that’s when the people were stabbed.” – Lucy Pirrie, neighbour of 152 Kinver Avenue, on discussions she had with witnesses

Most of the people in attendance were between the ages of 15-16, but there were two adults present. The teenagers had been drinking alcohol and consuming cannabis, Pirrie was told.

An 18-year-old and a 14-year-old, both girls, were stabbed. They were transported to hospital in critical condition. The 14-year-old died from her injuries. The 18-year-old has since been upgraded to stable condition.

“Nobody seemed to know who the (deceased) was, apparently she showed up with somebody else,” Pirrie said.

Some of the girls told Pirrie they lived in group homes, others said they were young mothers.

Police took a number of people into custody. No charges had been announced as of deadline Sunday.

“We have a number of people currently detained. Some where we’re speaking to them as witnesses, some where we’re trying to figure out what role they had. We’ve not made arrests yet, but I think we’ve spoken to most of the people we’re looking for,” Carver said.

Hours later, at 2:30 a.m. Sunday, officers were called to a back lane near Ross Avenue at Isabel Street after reports came in that two men were injured in the area. Upon arrival, police found two men suffering from “serious upper-body injuries.”

Both victims were taken to hospital in critical condition where they were pronounced dead.

Investigators believe the two victims were together when they were attacked by a third party. Police would not say what the cause of death was, but two sources told the Free Press it was a shooting.

Both victims were known to police, which means they had criminal records. Carver would not confirm whether the attack was gang related.

However, there were a number of gang tags in the immediate area surrounding the crime scene, including one scribbled on the side of a home that looked freshly painted. The tags were for two separate gangs, the Manitoba Warriors and the B Side gang.

A source with knowledge of Winnipeg’s gang scene described the B Side gang as “bitter rivals” of both the African Mafia and Mad Cowz street gangs. The Manitoba Warriors are known to be rivals of most other street gangs in the city.

“I think the two deceased were together. I don’t know the nature of whether or not they knew each other, but at this point I’m going to go out on a bit of a limb here and say it doesn’t appear that this was a random targeting,” Carver said.

No arrests were announced in the double homicide by deadline Sunday.

The chaos continued at 3:15 p.m. Sunday when officers were called to the scene of a shooting on the 400 block of Flora Avenue. Police say a suspect approached a home and fired at least one round from a firearm believed to be a shotgun.

Four people were shot — three adults and a child under the age of two. All of them were taken to hospital. Two were taken in critical condition, but Carver said it’s believed all four victims will survive.

“We’re certainly on track for a horrible number.” – Carver, on the city recording its 34th, 35th and 36th homicides of 2019 in one weekend

Carver said the spate of violence that hit the city was stretching police resources to its limits and resulting in a significant backlog of calls for service.

“It’s hugely taxing. I can tell you that every scene like this usually requires four, five, six, seven units. We’ve got investigators back at the station who are already working on existing incidents. Our resources are stretched very thin,” Carver said.

“We’re still trying to be on top of stuff. We’re still prioritizing high-priority calls. If someone is in a life-threatening situation we’re going to get people out there. But we’re going to have to ask the city to be patient over the next little while until we can work through this.”

While attempting to predict the pace of homicides is a fool’s errand given their random nature, Carver said it’s disheartening to know that regardless of what happens during the rest of the year, Winnipeg will see a high homicide total in 2019.

It remains unclear what is fuelling the high death count. In addition to the methamphetamine crisis in the city, Carver said police are seizing firearms and edged weapons on a daily basis.

“We’re certainly on track for a horrible number. Any number of homicides is bad, but 36 is not something that…,” he said, his voice trailing off. “We wish it was lower.”

“We’ve got guns and knives on the street. We’ve got that combination, including alcohol and drug fuelled issues. It causes violence and sometimes that violence turns to homicide.”

The weekend marked the most deadly in Winnipeg in recent years, Carver said.

Anyone with information about any of the homicides is asked to call investigators at 204-986-6508.

ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @rk_thorpe