Winnipeg police say someone has died after a man provoked a stranger and stabbed him on a bus Sunday.
Police were called to a Winnipeg Transit bus at Colony Street and Ellice Avenue Sunday at about 3 p.m.
They said two men got on the bus on Portage Avenue, without interacting, and sat down.
One then decided to start a fight, unprovoked, with the other man on the bus. As the pair argued, the suspect brandished a knife and stabbed the passenger.
The bus stopped, and the victim, Raymond Wesley Hill, 57, got off and managed to flag down a passing police cruiser, then collapsed. Police provided first aid until medical help came.
Police also got on the bus and arrested the suspect. Six or seven people were on the bus.
The homicide is Winnipeg’s 17th of the year.
Justin Gabriel James, 46, is charged with manslaughter.
Const. Jay Murray said police are looking for a witness who left the bus before police arrived.
“We’ve seen a number of violent incidents that involve people that are not known to each other,” said Murray, noting one incident near the Millennium Library when someone attacked a random person with a hammer, and another on the Disraeli Freeway when someone chased workers with a chainsaw.
“It’s certainly unusual to see that kind of violent crime, but it is occurring,” said Murray.
Murray said the amount of crime over the weekend is partly cyclical and comes with the warmer weather.
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