Confidence lost in RCMP, says First Nation calling for external investigation into deaths of 2 girls
CBC
The chief of a northeastern Manitoba First Nation where two girls were found dead outside earlier this month says the community has lost confidence in the RCMP investigation and its ability to stop rampant drug trafficking.
St. Theresa Point Chief Elvin Flett held a news conference Friday morning in Winnipeg to call for an external police service to look into the deaths of the two 14-year-old girls, Dayna Megan Madison Shingoose and Emily Marie Mason.
He also called for a special medical examiner's inquest into the deaths as well as past questionable deaths on the First Nation, saying people in the community "strongly suspect" the RCMP may not have properly investigated those deaths, but did not identify any specific questionable deaths.
Shingoose and Mason were found outside a home on the First Nation, about 460 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, on the morning of March 1.
RCMP believe the girls were outside for a period of time on a night when the temperature dropped to –23 C. They were taken to the nursing station, where they were pronounced dead.
Autopsies haven't been completed yet, but Flett said he and others firmly believe the girls died as a result of consuming illicit drugs.
"It is a fair and justified assumption on our part that authorities will confirm this. Hypothermia is a secondary cause," he said.
The office of Manitoba's chief medical examiner told CBC News that a call for a medical examiner's inquest cannot be made until the investigation is finished.
But Flett worries the autopsy results will just be a formality "to fulfil the legal and statutory requirements" without any accountability for the deaths.
"It will merely become a statistic," he said. "In these two deaths, the failure of authorities to pursue and lay charges to drug distributors responsible for the deaths is the failure of the legal system."
Dayna Shingoose's grandfather said his family is not certain yet what caused the teens' deaths.
"I don't want to say that they did drugs. We're not sure what they really did, what really happened," Albert Shingoose said during a Friday interview.
He does agree that the influx of drugs coming into St. Theresa Point is a problem.
"Chief and council have been trying to stop that for so long already," he said. "It's getting too much."
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