An employee of a West Alexander store went from victim to suspect Saturday night after police say he armed himself with a weapon and seriously injured a shoplifter outside the business.
The employee, a 28-year-old Winnipeg man, is facing charges of aggravated assault and possession of a weapon in a case that lawyers say is rare, but not unheard of, in Manitoba’s justice system.
“It’s not the kind of offence that’s going to get reported, so it doesn’t come before the courts very frequently,” Winnipeg defence attorney Scott Newman said.
“What’s a thief going to say? ‘The store employee assaulted me, but don’t worry, I was stealing.’”
According to a Winnipeg Police Service news release, officers were on patrol when they saw two men — one armed with a large edged weapon — fighting at about 8 p.m.
Investigators learned one of the men had left a business on the 600 block of William Avenue with stolen goods, police said. The employee grabbed the weapon and confronted the other man outside, striking him multiple times, the release said.
“You do have the ability to defend your property, but you’re going to have to justify to everyone else why you took the steps that you did.”–Winnipeg defence attorney Scott Newman
A 41-year-old man was taken to hospital in unstable condition with “serious bodily injuries” and later upgraded to stable; the employee was arrested and charged, police said.
Many details are unclear based on the news release, Newman said, including whether the employee pursued the alleged shoplifter in an attempt to recover stolen goods, who instigated the fight, what the level of threat was or if they both had weapons.
“You do have the ability to defend your property, but you’re going to have to justify to everyone else why you took the steps that you did,” he said. “The context is important.”
Defence attorney Evan Roitenberg agreed.
“There’s a difference between protecting your property in the moment… versus exacting a pound of flesh on somebody who has tried to take your property,” he said. “There are limits beyond which you can’t go.”
Roitenberg, who previously defended a Winnipeg store owner charged in a similar case, urged the public not to rush to judgment over whether the employee’s actions were justified.
“There’s a difference between protecting your property in the moment… versus exacting a pound of flesh on somebody who has tried to take your property … There are limits beyond which you can’t go.”–Defence attorney Evan Roitenberg
“When (information) comes from a police report, there is a lot of nuance and detail that you’re not provided, some of which isn’t known to the police yet,” he said.
“The police have authorized charges and they are giving you the release of those facts, which they believe justify those charges, but it doesn’t mean it tells the full story.”
The details of the incident could mean the difference between whether this is a case of self-defence, defence of property or something else entirely, he said.
Roitenberg acted as counsel for Kwang Soo Kim, who was a shopkeeper at Okay Groceries when he was charged with manslaughter in the September 2009 death of Geraldine Beardy.
The store, located at the corner of Sherbrook Street and Alexander Avenue, is located just a few blocks north of where Saturday’s incident occurred.
Beardy, 29, was hit in the upper body with a weapon and fell to the ground before getting up and fleeing to a nearby home. She died from her injuries five days later in hospital.
Police said at the time surveillance video showed the woman shoplifting from the store; friends identified the stolen item as a can of luncheon meat.
Kim was charged about eight months later and turned himself in to police. Ultimately, the charges against Kim were dropped after a key witness for the prosecution fled Manitoba to avoid criminal charges of his own.
Roitenberg said his client suffered under public scrutiny, despite not being convicted of the crime.
“Absolutely, that’s what happened. There were protests from the public and bashing by the media based on the information given by police in that initial release,” he said, referencing a demonstration outside Okay Groceries in which protesters dumped cans of luncheon meat on the ground.
“We certainly are not encouraging employees to interject themselves, but aren’t surprised when we hear these types of stories because we know there is a degree of tension and frustration at the cost of criminal activities.”–John Graham, director of government relations for the Prairies for the retail council
The Beardy case came at a time when many Manitobans were struggling against a variety of socio-economic factors that made it difficult to make ends meet — not unlike the situation facing the province today, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Roitenberg said.
City police and provincial officials have spent millions of dollars in a crackdown on retail crime, which has risen substantially in recent years, according to data from the WPS and the Retail Council of Canada.
“The attention that’s paid to it comes in waves,” Roitenberg said. “It’s really up to our government of the day to try to get at the underlying causes and correct those because… what’s at the heart of the issue is poverty and addiction.”
John Graham, director of government relations for the Prairies for the retail council, said he empathizes with the frustrations of business owners and employees who are repeatedly targeted by thieves.
But he urged them not to intervene if they witness a crime.
“We certainly are not encouraging employees to interject themselves, but aren’t surprised when we hear these types of stories because we know there is a degree of tension and frustration at the cost of criminal activities,” he said.
tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca
Tyler Searle
Reporter
Tyler Searle is a multimedia producer who writes for the Free Press‘s city desk. A graduate of Red River College Polytechnic’s creative communications program, he wrote for the Stonewall Teulon Tribune, Selkirk Record and Express Weekly News before joining the paper in 2022. Read more about Tyler.
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