Oh, That's Not Good

A triple homicide? Really? Jesus, that's nasty.

There hasn't been a triple homicide in Winnipeg since, what, 1996; since that one was quite obviously gang related, the current media conjecture holds that this is gang violence as well. It shouldn't take too long for the cops to gather information about the attack, since there were at least five other people in the house at the time, so we'll hear about what happened soon enough.

I've been meaning to do another SMHV for a while now, to get caught up, but I'd been debating whether or not to count the fourth homicide; it was initially designated and announced as a murder, but a week or so later it turned out to have been two teens stealing a pellet gun from a garage and then playing with it until one of them accidentally shot the other one in the head. It was unintentional, so it wasn't a murder, but it was still a homicide so I eventually figured that I'd include it -- and since then other sources have included it in their tallies as well, so there it is.

Yesterday there had been six homicides in 2008 and today there have been nine, not counting vehicular manslaughter (strange that nobody counts those; I seem to recall reading that it has different legal connotations or something). And the last five homicides have all been in the past two weeks, which doesn't bode particularly well for the coming spring.

Winnipeg is a dangerous city, some neighbourhoods more than others, so keep your wits about you out there. I live in one of the deep-red zones on that map, but I'm not too worried; mine is one of the safer high-crime areas. It's an important distinction! Keeps our morale up.



[Next Morning Add-On Edit:]

I wish I were as classy as the Winnipeg Sun.



If your top story on a given day is a gang-related triple homicide, is following that with the headline "Weather whacks 'Toba" really that great an idea? Were the staff genuinely unaware that the two headlines would be run side-by-side, or is it just standard editorial policy to tie the weather blurb into the top story whether it's a good idea or not? I don't understand these decisions sometimes.