WINNIPEG -- Winnipeg police said a homicide earlier in the month on Selkirk Avenue was premeditated and gang-related.
On the morning of May 21, officers went to the 700 block of Selkirk Avenue following a report a man was shot.
Upon arrival at the scene, police found the man with gunshot wounds on the front steps of a house. He was taken to hospital in critical condition where he died.
The victim has now been identified as Nairne Marshall James Chapais, 23.
The homicide unit continued to investigate and found two suspects at a hotel in the 200 block of McDermot Avenue.
The suspects were arrested, with police seizing a firearm and a small amount of cocaine from one of the suspects.
Police noted the victim had been socializing in the area when he was shot as he was going back to his home. Officers also determined the building that the victim lived in had been shot at three days earlier.
“This is gang-related,” said Const. Jay Murray of the Winnipeg Police Service.
“Any time we have gang-related violence, there’s a propensity for violence to continue. We’ve seen that in the past and we expect that we’ll see this in the future unfortunately.”
Tyler Ryan Kenneth, 21, and Clarence Raymon Scott, 30, have been charged with multiple offences, including first-degree murder. None of the charges have been tested in court.
Murray said the arrests are connected to the heavy police presence in the Exchange District earlier in the week.
“We took one of the males into custody without incident earlier in the day, but then we had information that a second male remained inside a suite at that hotel and physically had a firearm with him, he was in possession of it at the time,” said Murray.
“So we have to take every precaution to ensure that we take this person into custody safely. We don’t want there to be a danger to the public and unnecessary to people staying in that hotel or the employees there. So it’s a very delicate situation, one that has to be planned thoroughly.”
No shots were fired during the incident in the Exchange District.