Winnipeg police investigate Main Street and Higgins Avenue assault

Winnipeg police were still investigating at the scene of an overnight assault near Higgins Avenue and Main Street in Winnipeg’s downtown shortly before 11 a.m. Friday morning.

A man was assaulted near the intersection just after 2:30 a.m. Friday, police said.

The victim, an adult man, was taken to hospital in critical condition, but his condition has since been upgraded to stable.

Police had a portion of Main Street’s southbound curb lane between Sutherland and Higgins avenues blocked to traffic while uniformed officers photographed debris and identification markers on the sidewalk adjacent to the railway underpass.

A Global News camera operator observed what appeared to be bloodstains on the sidewalk.

Police have made no arrests.

“In the evening times when people start getting drunk or high on meth or anything like that… then it’s not a good time to come down here,” said James Cook, who frequents the Main Street strip during daylight hours.

“I’m pretty street smart, but I’m still scared down to come here (at night).”

Just over 24 hours earlier, a woman was found in critical condition after she was assaulted across the street from the scene of the Friday assault.

Long-time Point Douglas community activist Sel Burrows — who lives just blocks away from the strip of Main Street that’s home to most of the city’s service centres and shelters for people experiencing homelessness, along with numerous cheap hotels and beverage rooms — would like to see more done to protect the neighbourhood’s vulnerable residents.

“Wherever you have a gathering of vulnerable people and a gathering of people who want to take advantage of vulnerable people, you’re going to have problems,” Burrows said.

“All it needs is some leadership and a very little bit of money and we could have a system on Main Street that identified who the people taking advantage of the vulnerable are, who the people wandering around with knives and machetes are.”

For Burrows, that means community patrols, police walking the beat and social workers having a presence outside of working hours.

“Foot patrols at night and in the early morning, social service workers in the evenings and stuff, so that people who are vulnerable when they get drunk, aren’t dealt with by police, which they have to be now, they can be dealt with by a mental health worker or social worker,” he said.

It also means community pressure to improve safety in the core, Burrows said.

“If nobody yells, if nobody pressures, the inner city’s just pushed aside because in the suburbs — in the normally wealthy areas — people know how to call their councillor… In the inner city, most people don’t have a clue and don’t believe anybody would listen to them anyway — and they may be right.”

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