Homicide victim ‘much loved and respected’
Mourners who gathered to remember a teen homicide victim were implored to put an end to the violence that led to his death.
Police are still searching for answers after Danil Tsannie was left for dead on the steps of a friend’s Westmount home last week.
“As we gather to grieve Danil’s death, we also grieve the violence in our community,” Helen Smith- McIntyre, an activist and United Church minister, told those gathered a Tsannie’s funeral Thursday.
Details are still scarce about the killing of the 16-year-old, but police are investigating it as a homicide.
Tears were everywhere as more than two hundred people gathered to remember a young man who friends say had an infectious laugh and was always willing to help.
Many of the mourners were teens who knew Tsannie well.
“It’s a hard time for all of us right now. Danny was much loved and respected,” Cody Ross, one of Tsannie’s good friends, said outside the funeral.
Friends said Tsannie was a generous person who was trying to put his troubles behind him. He lived to help his mother, who uses a wheelchair, and cared deeply for those close to him, they said.
One of his former teachers recalled Tsannie’s eagerness to help younger kids with school subjects like math.
According to police, the teen died outside a house in the 100 block of Avenue I South on April 1. At the time of his death, the mother of the young woman who rents a basement suite in the house said her daughter told her Tsannie was forcibly removed from the place earlier and that he then reappeared, fatally injured, on the doorstep.
Smith-McIntyre, who has been consoling Tsannie’s family in the wake of the killing, said a history of colonization, residential schools and racism played a role in the circumstances that led to Tsannie’s death.
She underscored the tragedies First Nations people have endured and called Tsannie’s death a “nightmare.”
“Perhaps the greatest tribute we can pay to Danil is to commit to find ways to build a more peaceful community where people can live together in respect for each other and for all creation,” Smith-McIntyre said.
Tsannie’s death is Saskatoon’s fourth homicide of 2015; he was the second young person to be killed this year. So far, police have not laid any charges.