This weekend saw the city emergency response teams stretched to the limit with over a dozen prone bodies laying in need of help- and for some it was already too late.
Late night partyers were in the McDonalds drive-through at 3.30 AM Sunday when an enourmous crash echoed. One of them left behind his Big Mac to see what happened. Minutes later, when he hadn't returned, his friend walked onto Portage and headed west to see the carnage of a destroyed taxicab, and his buddy holding the cabbies head saying, don't die, man.
Nearby, the driver of a stolen SUV, that had rammed the taxi after running a red light at Maryland, had been run over by yet another car, which had itself sped away and is suspected to have also been a stolen vehicle.
Imagine, two stolen cars were speeding towards each in opposite directions, and would have passed each other on Portage Avenue at the same minute -- after a Saturday night in Winnipeg.
Only twenty minutes later, more emergency responders were sent to 1398 Alexander, where 2 men and a woman had been shot dead and 2 other men and yet another woman, were bleeding profusely from gunshots. Six people in one house had been shot, and neighbours had heard the owner screaming at the top of her lungs for help.
This had been a week of shootings, with 3 drive-by's on 3 straight days, in the cities' North End. The incidents barely made the mainstream headlines, and Stacey Ashley of CTV said in an interview on our Wedensday show, that the police did not consider this unusual. The Free Press reported that in hindsight, the drive-bys may have been a warning sign about gang war in the making.
Taxi companies will not dispatch cabs to many West Alexander addresses and drivers are warned to get cash in advance, and is described as being as dangerous as Magnus Avenue and the Lord Selkirk Developments. That may also have been a warning sign.
Police say they have no suspects and no motive for the shooting, but you can bet it won't be long before you hear the word CRACK.
More on the weekend violence, the Friends of Upper Fort Garry muscling City Hall, and a special Wrestlemania 24 report with Frank the Italian Barber and Shane Madison, beginning Monday at 4 PM.
Call 780-5425 or email talk@kick.fm and join Winnipeg's only drive-home call-in show.
