Like Tahir Khan (Toronto), Antonio (Tony) Lanzellotti died in a car accident caused by such gross willful negligence that it amounted to vehiclular homicide. Mr. Lanzelotti, 55, had been driving for Duffy's Taxi for only two months. He previously worked for the Commissionaires of Manitoba and had been a long-distance truck driver. He came to Winnipeg from Italy at the age of seven and was married with a 28-year-old son. Early in the morning of Saturday, March 29, 2008, Mr. Lanzellotti was southbound on Maryland Street with a passenger. As he crossed the major intersection at Portage Avenue a stolen chevrolet Avalanche ran a red light at an estimated speed of 139 km per hour and ploughed into the taxi. After impact the SUV somersaulted over the taxi and smashed into concrete planters on the Portage Avenue median. Mr. Lanzelotti died instantly of massive injuries, including a skull fracture, broken ribs and legs and brain and chest trauma. His passenger survived with relatively minor injuries. He was treated in hospital and released the same day. The Avalanche was one of three stolen vehicles that were used to ferry a mob of youths from party to party the night before Mr. Lanzelotti's death. One of the vehicles broke down in front of an apartment block on Edmonton Street. Police were called when the youths -- thirteen teenage boys, a teenage girl and a young adult, all of them young offenders -- began playing "bumper cars" by ramming the broken down vehicle with the other two. When police arrived the group piled into the Avalanche and a Chevrolet Silverado and sped away. The police officers followed but did not give chase because of the danger to other motorists and pedestrians. Despite this the Avalanche and the Silverado raced west along Portage Avenue. The Silverado, containing seven of the youths, skidded off Portage onto Young Street and sped north. The Avalanche continued along Portage for another three blocks before colliding with Mr. Lanzelotti's taxi. The 14-year-old driver of the Avalanche was ejected from the SUV and seriously injured. He initially claimed to have been walking down the street when he was struck by debris from the crash, but his DNA was found on the Avalanche's driver-side airbag. All the other youths survived the crash with varying injuries. One was thrown from the Avalanche and run over by another car. In 2010 the driver was convicted of criminal negligence causing death and bodily harm and was given the maximum sentence of two years closed custody followed by one year of community supervision. He was not allowed credit for the more than two years he had already spent in custody. A ten-year driving prohibition was also imposed. Prior to 2008 Winnipeg became known as the stolen car capital of Canada, with a vehicle being stolen, on average, every thirty minutes. In 2008 the number of car thefts showed a decline but the level of violence increased with incidents of car thieves ramming police cars and trying to goad police into car chases.

Tony Lanzellotti. (Source: Winnipeg Free Press Passages) The aftermath of Mr. Lanzelotti's death exposed the federal and provincial justice system's apparent inability to deal with youth crime. Only weeks before the fatal collision the driver of the Avalanche had been placed in the "most stringent" youth criminal program in the province. During those weeks the boy breached his probation 24 times. None of the breaches were reported to the police. A court-ordered report on his progress while in custody stated that his biggest problem was his "criminally entrenched" family who had links to a local street gang. Several members of the family have been deported from Canada. All fourteen of the youths who rode in the two SUVs were charged with a variety of offences, mainly possession of drugs and stolen property. Most were released on bail and all but one reoffended while out on bail. In the case of one of the 14 who consistently violated parole, Manitoba Child and Family Services admitted that there was no legal option except to "warehouse" him in a hotel, a practice for dealing with troubled youth that the MCFS had been widely criticized for. Another of the 14 stole a Hummer in December, 2009. He sped thorugh a stop sign and collided with another car, killing the 47-year-old driver, Zdzislaw Andrzejczak. According to the Winnipeg Free Press this was eleventh fatality involving stolen cars in Manitoba between 2000 and 2009.