Winnpeg teens face weapons, drugs charges following traffic stop for driving wrong way on one-way street

Five teens have been arrested and face drugs and weapons charges after they were spotted going the wrong way down a one-way street downtown.

Around 12:40 a.m. Saturday, police spied a car heading west on York Avenue near Fort Street.

“Officers that work downtown know those streets pretty well, and if you see a vehicle travelling the wrong way on a one-way street, it usually sticks out like a sore thumb,” Const. Jay Murray said. “Pretty quickly officers divert their attention to that vehicle because you don’t know if it’s an impaired driver, there’s obviously a strong potential for an accident to happen.”

Police pulled the car over a few blocks away on Graham Avenue, arresting all five people inside after the driver gave a fake name and failed to provide his licence or the car’s registration papers.

A search of the vehicle turned up a handgun and a magazine with extra ammunition, a knife, nearly $2,000 cash and a small amount of crack cocaine.

“One of the things that made (police) a little suspicious about this vehicle when we stopped it was the fact that the 15-year-old told us he had bought it that day,” Const. Murray said. “We later did track down who had been the owner of the vehicle — and in fact, the fifteen-year-old had paid cash for that vehicle earlier in the day.”

“We don’t believe that these five individuals were up to anything good, as you can see with the handgun, the crack cocaine and the large quantity of cash, and the charges that we’ve laid certainly reflects that.”

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The driver is facing more than a dozen charges and was wanted on two outstanding warrants for five counts of failing to comply with a prior sentence.

The other four teen boys are facing various charges for drugs and weapons.