Police saw missing girl before she died
Winnipeg teen was in car officers pulled over
WINNIPEG — New details emerged Thursday about the last hours that Tina Fontaine was seen alive. The 15-year-old girl’s killing has renewed calls for a national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women.
Winnipeg police confirmed that two officers came across Fontaine when they pulled over a vehicle on Aug. 8 — the day before she disappeared and more than a week before her body was pulled from the Red River. Fontaine had been reported missing more than a week earlier but was not taken into custody at the traffic stop.
“If officers come across a person that’s reported missing, I would expect t hem to t a ke that person into their care,” Supt. Danny Smyth said Thursday.
An internal investigation is underway to find out why she was let go, and the two officers have been put on administrative duties. It was not clear whether the officers knew Fontaine’s identity at the time, or whether they were aware she had been reported missing.
Smyth spoke at a news conference set up to respond to a CTV report that said Fontaine was a passenger in a vehicle along with a man who was arrested on suspicion of being impaired.
The incident occurred nine days before Fontaine’s body was found in a bag in the Red River.
Police said their investigation into the teen’s death was active, although no arrests have been made.
Fontaine had spent much of her life with her great-aunt, Thelma Favel, on the Sagkeeng First Nation, 75 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg. She had a history of running away and went to Winnipeg about a month before her death to visit her biological mother.
Favel had asked a child welfare agency for help with Fontaine and said Thursday social workers failed her. The girl was supposed to be in a group home or foster home but had run away and had not been seen for more than a week.
Favel said social workers have told her that on the night of Aug. 8 — which would be a few hours after police came across Fontaine — the girl had passed out in an
It’s just another aboriginal
who fell through the cracks, is the way I
see it
THELMA FAVEL
alley downtown and paramedics took her to a hospital.
“They kept her there for about three or four hours until she sobered up a little bit and then (social workers) picked her up from the hospital.”
That appears to have been the last time she was seen alive. Fontaine managed to run away again shortly thereafter, Favel said.
Child and Family Services has launched an internal investigation into the case. The Manitoba government and the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority would not confirm or deny Favel’s statements, citing privacy laws and the police investigation.
Favel said despite the probes by police, the government and the arm’s-length provincial children’s advocate, she expects nothing will change.
“It’s just another aboriginal who fell through the cracks, is the way I see it.”
Favel said Thursday she has received a $500 bill in the mail for Fontaine’s ambulance ride to the hospital.