One person has been arrested after a senior was attacked in broad daylight Friday on a downtown street — the latest in a string of assaults in the city’s core.
Horrified onlookers, including construction workers, rushed to the man’s aid, a witness who works downtown told the Free Press.
Winnipeg Police Service spokesman Const. Jason Michalyshen confirmed officers were called about an assault on a man near Kennedy Street and St. Mary Avenue at about noon.
He said the victim, who was in stable condition, sought medical treatment.
Michalyshen said police arrested an individual, but he could not confirm their age or gender.
The witness, who did not want to be identified, said she called 911 as construction workers rushed to help the victim and waved down a nearby police cruiser.
She saw a man who appeared to be under the influence of drugs near the intersection of Kennedy and St. Mary.
“He kept punching the air… I thought he would just go by, but he turned and with his right hand, punched the senior,” she said.
The man was knocked to the ground and was bleeding from his nose. He had apricot-sized swelling under his eye as a result of the punch, the woman said.
She said the victim told her he’d been waiting for a relative who was at the Winnipeg Clinic, about a block away.
“Instead of waiting inside, I think he was just enjoying the sunshine,” she said. “There’s a lot of people in Winnipeg who are willing to help when something like this happens.”
She said she often sees people behaving erratically, screaming, who appear to be on drugs, when she’s downtown for work. She said she’s noticed that’s been happening more frequently in recent years, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It seems like this violence is ready to happen at any time,” she said. “I feel like downtown is not safe to walk around.”
On Tuesday, Winnipeg police said they had arrested one person after four people — two of them seniors — were targeted in unprovoked attacks June 26.
Two weeks earlier, a 49-year-old man was randomly slain as he and his wife walked to pick up their 12-year-old son from school at lunchtime.
Ricky Mancheese was near Kennedy Street and Sargent Avenue he was attacked by a man with a knife.
Matthew Gerald Tomack Pelletier, 36, has been charged with second-degree murder.
— Free Press staff