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Winnipeg man charged in stabbing of three-year-old boy

‘It’s inconceivable to think that somebody would target an innocent child’
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Winnipeg Police Service Constable Jay Murray addresses media in the Osborne area in Winnipeg, Monday, April 23, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods

Police have filed an attempted murder charge against a man they allege assaulted the mother of a three-year-old boy before walking to a home and stabbing the sleeping toddler.

Daniel Jensen, 33, of Winnipeg was arrested on Wednesday.

“It’s inconceivable to think that somebody would target an innocent child, probably one that was attempting to sleep at that time of night, very defenceless,” Const. Jay Murray said Thursday.

Murray said Jensen and the mother previously were in a relationship, but he is not the child’s father.

Police say Jensen and the boy’s mother got into an argument early Wednesday morning and the woman was assaulted.

He then walked to a north-end Winnipeg home where the boy was sleeping and stabbed him multiple times.

The child remains in critical condition in hospital.

Officers spotted Jensen walking down the street Wednesday afternoon and took him into custody.

He was under a court order not to contact the mother, Murray said. He’s also charged with failures to comply with recognizance and probation orders.

Bernadette Smith, member of the legislature for Point Douglas, where the attack happened, wiped away tears as she recalled speaking with family members at the hospital Wednesday night.

“This is a call to our community, to our stakeholders as well as our province and our city, something needs to change,” she said.

She pointed to a spate of violent crimes in the last week involving young people.

A 14-year-old girl was killed and an 18-year-old woman was taken to hospital in critical condition after a stabbing at a Halloween party Saturday. A 16-year-old girl and an 18-year-old woman were charged with second-degree murder and attempted murder in that case.

On Sunday, a baby was injured after a man fired a shotgun into a home and then fled.

“This is fuelled by meth and we need more resources for people to get off of this drug,” Smith said.

Police Chief Danny Smyth has also linked the surge in violence to the city’s methamphetamine crisis.

KEEP READING: Inexpensive crystal meth eclipsing opioids on the Prairies

There have been seven homicides in Winnipeg in three weeks, pushing the number of killings to 37 so far this year. The all-time high was in 2011 when 41 people were killed.

Kelly Geraldine Malone, The Canadian Press

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