BOY, 14, SHOT DEAD ON STREET

Gunned Down Outside Suspected Drug House

'It's a crack war is what it is. People are fighting over sides and
who gets to sell it on this side of Portage Avenue' -- West End resident

A 14-year-old youth gunned down early yesterday outside a suspected
drug house is the latest victim in Winnipeg's rising tide of gun
violence. Police released few details on the shooting, the city's 19th
homicide of the year and the fifth in the Winnipeg area involving a
firearm.

The teen's killing provoked shock in the neighbourhood because of the
victim's age.

Witnesses said they heard at least four shots after an apparent
confrontation shortly after 4 a.m. outside a Sherbrook Street
residence in the West End. At least one shot struck the victim, a
black male, in the chest.

"The shots were pretty loud," said Travis Forster. "Everyone
scattered. Three people ran down the street towards Sargent Avenue and
then cut through an empty lot. I was just coming home and I didn't
stick around to watch."

Winnipeg Police spokesman Const. Bob Johnson said police and
paramedics arrived about 4:20 a.m. to find the victim lying on his
back on the ground just in front of an apartment block on Sherbrook,
right next to the alleged drug house. The youth was rushed to the
Health Sciences Centre, where he was pronounced dead.

Community activist Rev. Harry Lehotsky said older drug dealers are
getting younger kids to be drug couriers, delivering crack cocaine to
area users.

"The dealers keep their hands clean," he said. "They don't want
headaches from police anymore."

Lehotsky also criticized the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) as
being too soft on youth crime. Under the federal legislation, many
kids are let off with only warnings.

"We've got little clumps of kids causing a lot of damage," he said.
"They walk around here with baseball bats and they're stealing purses
or bikes, and they get more and more heady each time they get away
with this stuff. It just keeps going and no one knows how to stop it."
Police said they could not comment on whether the 14-year-old was
involved in the drug trade or with a street gang.

Johnson also wouldn't comment on how many bullets hit the youth,
although witnesses say the youth appeared to have been shot three times.

Apartment resident Ruben Roopnarine said he was leaving for work just
as police and the ambulance arrived.

"I recognized the kid as someone from the area," he said. "I had just
yelled at him the day before for hanging around."

Roopnarine said the victim was lying in a fetal position and appeared
to be dead at the scene.

Johnson said police would not release the youth's name because they
were prohibited in doing so by the YCJA.

Viola Prowse, a mother of five who has been active in parent
associations and other organizations to improve education, said it's
hard to pinpoint the cause of an individual incident, but the facts of
yesterday's killing are especially disturbing.

"As a parent, I'm horrified, of course, about what's happening,"
Prowse said. "This is incredibly sad that a 14-year-old kid should be
killed as part of gang activity, or whatever it is."

A man who drove up to the scene yesterday afternoon, claiming to be a
relative of the dead youth, declined to be interviewed or identify the
deceased. The shooting death was the second report of gunfire on the
street in 12 hours. Shortly before 6 p.m. Thursday, two youths walking
down the sidewalk fired at least three shots from a handgun through
the front porch window of 549 Sherbrook.

Residents Talitha Toole and Drew McNabb said the shots didn't hurt
anyone. Three young children were napping upstairs at the time. The
slugs embedded themselves in a wooden wall and doorway frame.

Toole said police believe the shots came from a .38-calibre revolver.
She said she had no idea why her home was targeted. Police later
arrested two youths.

"It's a crack war is what it is," she said. "People are fighting over
sides and who gets to sell it on this side of Portage Avenue."

Investigators with the homicide unit were interviewing several people
yesterday with the hope of identifying a suspect or suspects in the
killing. No arrests had been made at press time.

Police forensic experts collected casts of footprint impressions
outside the alleged drug house, a tiny ramshackle home that had all
its window shades drawn. It also had a tiny interior surveillance
camera attached to the main front window to allow those inside to see
who was at the front door.

Police ask that anyone having any information on this homicide to call
investigators at 986-6508 or call Crime Stoppers at 786-8477.