Winnipeg police have arrested a man after a cab driver was robbed on Friday night.

Around 11:30 p.m. the taxi driver picked up a man in the area of Notre Dame Avenue and Weston Street. He was driven to the 2100 block of Gallagher Avenue where police said a verbal fight happened between the driver and passenger.

Investigators alleged the suspect got out of the cab and walked around to the driver’s door, pointed a gun at him and demanded money.

The 43-year-old driver was hit in the head with the gun, which police later said was a replica. The suspect took money and ran.

The police K9 unit and Air1 helped track the suspect to a bush in the yard at the 1400 block of Logan Avenue where he was taken into custody. That’s where officers found the replica gun and money.

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Travis Edmard Melvin Francis, 29, was charged with armed robbery using a firearm, use of a firearm during the commission of an indictable offence, pointing a firearm and two counts of failure to comply with his probation order.

The taxi driver was sent to hospital to be treated for injures.

“I don’t want to call them minor injuries because I think the psychological trauma that he may have endured would be significant, but he definitely was in hospital for at least a short amount of time with injuries,” said Const. Jay Murray. Tweet This

Murray also wanted to point out how common and problematic replica guns are to local police.

“In this case the firearm was designed to look like an M1911 pistol, which is a pistol that was used by the United States Armed Forces in four wars so I don’t think there’s any good reason why these firearms are designed to look like that,” he said.

“Unless you carefully handle this firearm you’re not going to know the difference and it really is amazing how similar these weapons can look to their real counterparts and it’s nearly impossible to tell them apart.”

Murray said part of the problem is how easy it is to get a fake gun.

“You can purchase some of these at different stores, they don’t require a license, they’re easy to get your hands,” he said. “It’s scary, it really is not only for the victims but also for the police that have to deal with these weapons.”

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