Canadian Foster Son Beats Foster Daughter to Death

“A 15-year-old boy has been charged in the vicious beating of a teen girl in downtown Winnipeg near a hotel where both were living in the care of children’s services.

Police said the boy has been charged with aggravated assault and aggravated sexual assault.

The girl, who is also 15, remains in critical condition as a result of the attack, which happened on Hargrave Street. She was found early Wednesday morning.

Const. Chris Wingfield with the Winnipeg Police Service said he doesn’t know if the girl will survive.

He said the suspect and victim were known to each other.

“It’s my understanding that they were walking around together downtown and some kind of argument ensued between the two of them.”

Both the girl and the boy are in care of the province’s Child and Family Services (CFS) system and were being housed at the same hotel not far from where the girl was found, police said.

he boy, who is now in custody at the Manitoba Youth Centre, was the one who flagged officers down for help, claiming to be a passerby who found the girl.

After questioning him, officers became suspicious of his story and pressed him further, which led to the arrest.

No other charges are expected, although the boy’s charges would be upgraded if the girl does not survive, police said.

CBC News has talked to another teen who met the victim Tuesday evening and said she appeared to have been drinking and was with a group of friends when she left her hotel.

Boy, 15, charged in vicious attack on teen girl in Winnipeg[CBC 4/2/15]

“The victim of a violent sexual assault and her alleged attacker are both foster children who had been placed at the same Winnipeg hotel – the latest revelation in a case that native leaders say proves the child-welfare system is damaging to the vulnerable people it is supposed to protect.

The April 1 assault on a teenaged girl in the Manitoba capital prompted the provincial government’s pledge this week to remove all foster children from hotels by June 1. It has also triggered a pair of probes by the Office of the Children’s Advocate and Child and Family Services, which will review the services the victim and the accused had been receiving.

Native leaders said the victim, who is in critical condition and has not been publicly identified, is aboriginal. Police said Thursday the victim knew the accused, a 15-year-old male who was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and aggravated sexual assault for his alleged involvement in the attack. The male, who has not been named because he is a minor, is being held at the Manitoba Youth Centre.

The accused had flagged a passing police cruiser to alert officers to the injured female. He was initially considered a witness, but police said his story was not making sense.

Derek Nepinak, the Grand Chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, said he was not surprised to learn the accused was in foster care. “Oftentimes our young people are becoming lost in the system, and they’re not developing the same type of normative standards and morals that you’d expect growing up in a more nuclear or extended-family setting,” he said. “We need to look toward nurturing the spirit. That’s completely absent from the equation right now.”

The attack marks the second high-profile crime in less than a year involving a teenaged aboriginal girl who had been placed in a hotel. In August, 15-year-old Tina Fontaine was killed after going missing from her placement at the Best Western Charter House. Her death reignited calls for a national inquiry into Canada’s murdered and missing indigenous women and sparked fresh scrutiny of the child-welfare system. In Manitoba, nearly 90 per cent of the more than 10,000 children and youth in care are native.

The Globe and Mail has been investigating the province’s emergency child-welfare system since October. It found some children were living in hotels for weeks at a time. A recent visit to one downtown Winnipeg hotel revealed a spike in the number of foster children staying in hotels, even after the government promised in November to reduce its reliance on them.

Hours after the assault, Family Services Minister Kerri Irvin-Ross said she ordered her department to find “alternative safe places” for children within 60 days – an announcement that was immediately met with skepticism by native leaders who question the government’s motives. Asked Thursday about the fact that the accused was also in care, a spokeswoman for the minister said Ms. Irvin-Ross would not comment further because of the police investigation.

The Winnipeg Police Service said officers located the injured female in the downtown area around 4:50 a.m. Wednesday – 11 minutes prior to her being reported missing from care.

Dawn Harvard, the interim president of the Native Women’s Association of Canada, said she is concerned that children are being removed from their homes in the name of safety only to then be placed in situations where they are extremely vulnerable. She said she also fears wards of the province are not getting the counselling they need to address the neglect or violence they may have experienced before they came into care.

“If they’re not getting sufficient contact, love and support from a loving family, then children end up with maladaptive behaviours,” she said. “They might act out because they haven’t been given the basic necessities of life – and the basic necessities aren’t just food, water and a roof, it’s also human contact and love.””

Teen girl and her alleged attacker both foster children at Winnipeg hotel[The Globe and Mail 4/2/15  by Kathyrn Blaze Carlson]

“The grandmother of a 15-year-old girl who was viciously attacked last week while living at a hotel under the care of Child and Family Services (CFS) blames the agency for not watching her closely enough.

The grandmother, who can’t be identified, said the girl had been living in a hotel since January of this year and was not attending school.

The teen was beaten on Hargrave Street last week and is still in a medically-induced coma and listed in critical condition. The girl was found at 4:47 a.m. and was reported missing 11 minutes after police found her.

“I really blame CFS, they should have looked after her, letting her go every day, every night,” the grandmother said. “Where are the people supposed to be watching her for 24 hours, where are they? I should have let her stay here, she would be safe here.”

She said CFS workers told her the kids at the hotel could come and go as they liked.

The grandmother said she gave up the girl to CFS because she wasn’t able to care for her anymore, was set to get an operation and she didn’t think relatives could help either.

While under CFS care, the girl came back home almost every night  to borrow clothes from relatives because she didn’t get any while in care.

She also said she does not believe CFS investigated a fight the girl got into with three other girls at the hotel days before the attack.

“I phoned right away, I said, ‘I told you not to let them out at nighttime.’ But they’re still leaving them and letting them out at nighttime. I said, ‘is there security or somebody to watch those kids not to go out at nighttime?'”

She said the girls who beat her granddaughter and the 15-year-old teen boy charged with the brutal assault and sexual assault were all staying at the same hotel under CFS care.

The grandmother said the entire family is very upset over what happened to the girl.

After the attack, an emotionally-rattled Family Services Minister Kerri-Irvin Ross vowed to put an end to the practice of housing kids under CFS care staying by June.

he province said Tuesday there were no children in CFS care in hotels over the Easter weekend.’

Family of teen beaten in CFS care blames agency for not watching girl[CBC 4/7/15]

“A 15-year-old Winnipeg girl who was seriously assaulted while in government care has been taken off life support.

Derek Nepinak, chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, says the girl’s family gathered at the hospital and made the agonizing decision Wednesday.

He says the family was at her bedside and has asked for privacy.

The girl was beaten and left for dead at a parkade in downtown Winnipeg on April 1.

Police charged a 15-year-old boy with aggravated assault and aggravated sexual assault.

Both teens were in foster care and were being housed in the same downtown hotel.

“They are at her bedside now in a heartbreaking situation,” Nepinak said Wednesday night.

The attack prompted Manitoba Family Services Minister Kerri Irvin-Ross to promise to stop housing foster children in hotels by June 1.

Manitoba has about 10,000 children in care. The vast majority are aboriginal. On any given day, dozens of those children are put up in hotels because there isn’t room in a foster or group home.

The provincial government has been under fire for housing foster children in hotels for 15 years.

Manitoba’s Children’s Advocate has released several critical reports about the practice since 2000, urging the government to find better alternatives.”

Teen beaten, left for dead[Casta.net 4/15/15 by The Canadian Press]

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