A truly sad outcome, but why would anyone expect anything different, once again first nation leadership and provincial jackass Terry Nelson fall silent when the shit hits the fan. Pretty tough to blame whitey on this one.
Two tragedies, few answers
Nobody helped rescue people found inside Shamattawa blaze
By: Gabrielle Giroday and Mary Agnes Welch
MKO Grand Chief David Harper meets with media Wednesday.
TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Enlarge Image
MKO Grand Chief David Harper meets with media Wednesday.
It took RCMP 63 hours to learn a Shamattawa boy was missing and likely dead in a house fire.
It took more than three days for a northern child welfare agency to find out a boy in its care was unaccounted for.
The community fire hall.
Enlarge Image
The community fire hall.
Double tragedy and a troubling question
It took 63 hours before RCMP learned a boy died in a Shamattawa house fire
It took more time for a child-welfare agency to realize the boy was missing
Fire investigators later discovered there was a second body in the house
And still no one knows why the reserve's fire department failed to respond to the emergency
Related Items
1.
Articles
* First Nation has history of violent deaths
And it took the province's fire investigators even longer to realize the blaze claimed the life of a second victim.
The problems that plague northern communities -- poor housing, spotty firefighting and fractured families -- fused into a tragedy early Saturday morning and apparently led to the death of an 11-year-old boy and another person who remains unidentified nearly five days after the fire.
It's not clear why volunteer firefighters failed to respond to calls for help, why no one noticed an 11-year-old boy in foster care had vanished and why no one seems to know the identity of the second victim.
"All these things are very puzzling, certainly," said Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Grand Chief David Harper. "It's very devastating."
Residents of the community identified the missing boy as Edward Redhead, though this was not formally confirmed. Members of the Redhead family declined to comment.
RCMP officers stumbled upon the house fire early Saturday morning. They alerted the local volunteer fire department, but no one responded.
"We're a police service, we're not equipped nor trained to put out fires," said RCMP spokeswoman Sgt. Line Karpish. "They have to think of their safety as well... Anytime there's a fire, we rely on fire departments to be there to fight the fires because they're the ones with the equipment, they're the ones with the breathing apparatus, they're the ones with the training to deal with fires."
Shamattawa has three volunteer firefighters, but Harper and Shamattawa First Nation Chief Jeff Napoakesik are trying to figure out why no firefighters responded to the call. Harper said there is no 911 emergency phone service that far north and firefighters have no pagers or two-way radios. Often when there's a fire, someone simply runs to a firefighter's home and bangs on the door.
Karpish said RCMP officers had no idea someone might have perished in the fire until they were told two days later by a band councillor that a boy was missing. It was his grandparents' home that burned to the ground, and his grandparents initially told RCMP no one was home.
It appears the boy had been staying with his grandparents instead of his foster family over the holidays. The boy's father said the grandparents speak only Cree, but Karpish said language did not account for the delay alerting authorities he was missing.
The grandparents had run out of heating fuel, so they locked their door and went to stay elsewhere. Harper said the home was typical of wood-frame reserve houses -- a "matchbook," he said.
The boy was in the care of the Awasis child and family services agency, which didn't know one of its kids in care on the reserve was missing until about 80 hours after the fire.
Following the fire, Awasis officials did a head-count of all 66 kids in care and took photos of each child. Every child was accounted for except one, but Awasis would not confirm the name.
Marie Lands, head of the Northern Authority that oversees Awasis, said it could have been a case of the grandparents and the foster family believing the boy was in the care of the other.
She said it will take time to sort out what went wrong, but it appears all the proper standards and protocols were followed.
Meanwhile, police and band members face another mystery -- the second victim's identity.
They spent Wednesday going door-to-door in an effort to determine who might be missing.
Karpish said investigators are dealing with "charred bodies" from the blaze and water from the home's pipes that poured into the house and froze in the crawl space below.
"We've had to set up literally a tent over the house to heat it up and melt the ice in order to be certain there's no one else," she said.
Fire investigators arrived Tuesday morning.
Manitoba Fire Commissioner Christopher Jones said fire investigators in Winnipeg should be immediately notified when a fatality is suspected, or there are suspicious circumstances, an explosion or major property loss. The fire commissioner's office has a 24-hour emergency line and three fire investigators on call.
RCMP or local authorities must also contact the fire commissioner's office when the cause of the fire is unknown, Jones said.
"In First Nations communities like this one, it's the RCMP."
Jones said the RCMP contacted the fire commissioner's office on Monday at 10 p.m., three hours after police were alerted the boy was missing.
"Obviously, this case, things changed as it went along," he said. "The second they suspected something, they notified us."
Within hours of the investigator's arrival, the body of the first victim was located, followed by the second.
Karpish said the local fire department was responsible for alerting the fire commissioner's office, not the RCMP.
Both bodies will be transported to Winnipeg for autopsies.
maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca gabrielle.giroday@freepress.mb.ca
Timeline of a tragedy
Saturday at about 4 a.m.:
Fire starts in a one-storey home. A bystander rushes in to search the home before he is forced out by the flames.
Minutes later:
Mounties in the area on an unrelated call go to the scene, but are unable to enter the home. The Mounties call volunteer firefighters, but get no response.
Sunday:
Mounties locate the grandparents who own the burned home. Mounties say they are not told about a missing child.
Monday at about 7 p.m.:
A band councillor tells the RCMP an 11-year-old boy is missing.
Monday at about 10 p.m.:
Mounties call the Office of the Fire Commissioner, which sends an investigator.
Tuesday:
A fire investigator arrives in the community and a body is located by midday. Mounties say they suspect it could be the missing boy. Another body is found later in the day.
Tuesday, early afternoon:
Child welfare officials first learn that a child in their care is missing.
Wednesday:
Mounties say they have no clue who the second body is. It's charred beyond recognition.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 7, 2010 A3
Prev
RCMP at the scene of a fatal fire on the Shamattawa First Nation, where a home burned down Saturday but remains weren't discovered until Tuesday. (CBC) A fire on Shamattawa First Nation in Manitoba that killed a boy is being treated as an arson-related homicide by police, who have a 16-year-old boy from the community in custody.
Shamattawa First Nation is about 750 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg. (CBC) Opposition politicians in Manitoba called for a full independent probe of Awasis, which is being reviewed for financial and operational reasons.
Linear Mode
