Sexual assault charges laid after 9 women groped

A young Winnipeg man faces charges in a string of gropings in and around the downtown and West Broadway areas last week.

Nine women were groped onThursday and Friday.

The first incident happened around 4:30 p.m. on Sept. 21, when a 33-year-old woman was grabbed in the area of Logan Avenue and Princess Street.

The next day around 7:30 a.m., a 17-year-old girl was grabbed on Borrowman Place near Gordon Bell High School.

Over the next hour, seven more women were grabbed in an area east of the first two gropings.

At 7:50 a.m., a 24-year-old woman was grabbed near Portage Avenue and Maryland Street. Two minutes later, a 29-year-old woman was grabbed a block away at Portage and Sherbrook Street.

At 7:58, a 46-year-old woman was grabbed on Portage near Langside Street. Two minutes after that, a man was seen committing an indecent act in a grocery store on Broadway near Spence Street, and a 30-year-old female employee was grabbed.

Seven minutes later, a 30-year-old woman who was with her child was grabbed in the area of Young Street and Broadway.

At 8:20 a.m., a 43-year-old woman was grabbed at a business on Portage near Balmoral Street. The final groping occurred 10 minutes later when a 21-year-old was grabbed near the University of Winnipeg.

Police investigated and arrested an 18-year-old man two hours later at a residence in the Springfield North area in northeast Winnipeg.

Winnipeg Police Service Const. Jay Murray said the case is unusual.

"We don't often see groping incidents here in the city, and this was beyond just a simple pat on the back or on the bottom. This was much more violating than that," he said.

None of the women were physically injured and none of them knew the suspect, Murray said.

The day before the first groping, the same man was charged with threatening to kill a Winnipeg Transit driver and supervisor after the driver woke him up. Police found the man was under a court order to leave a bus if asked to.

The man now faces nine counts of sexual assault and one charge of committing an indecent act.

He is being held in custody. Anyone with information can call investigators at 204-986-6245 or contact Crime Stoppers.