One dead. Far more questions than answers. A fire being treated as an arson-homicide and a 16-year-old local boy charged with second-degree murder in connection with the fire. Tragedy has once again visited Shamattawa on a shocking scale.
Sgt. Line Karpish, an RCMP media spokesperson based in Winnipeg, said the 16-year-old is being held in custody in Shamattawa and will be flown to Thompson where he will make his first youth court appearance Jan. 12.
"The cause of death we know as smoke inhalation," Karpish said, during a press conference in Shamattawa Friday. "The cause of the fire remains undetermined but deemed suspicious."
With a population of about 1,300, it is one of Northern Manitoba's most remote and isolated Northern Cree First Nations communities. And it is also a place that when outsiders utter the word "Shamattawa" it is almost always in the context of despair linked with tragedy.
In recent years, suicide and attempted suicide, often by the very young, have been the main headline. Good news stories about Shamattawa, a place most Manitobans will never visit, and good news stories are few and far between.
This time, the tragedy is death by fire - a house fire that claimed a life - and is raising questions about accountability and responsibility for volunteer firefighters, caregivers, child protection workers and perhaps more to come on a systemic scale in the community. A second set of remains found burned in the house and believed to be human initially were "conclusively identified as animal remains," RCMP said Thursday afternoon. The print edition of the Jan. 8 Nickel Belt News, which goes to press Thursday mornings at 9 a.m., refers to two fatalities in the fire, as was believed to be the case at press time. The animal remains are believed to be from a caribou, Shamattawa Chief Jeff Napoakesik says.
Speaking at a press conference in Winnipeg Jan. 6 on behalf of Napoakesik, who was at home on the reserve, Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Inc. (MKO) Grand Chief David Harper said: "This tragedy has shocked the small First Nation of Shamattawa and our heartfelt condolences go out to the families. We ask the media to respect the privacy of the community at this time. As we learn more from investigators we will keep everyone informed."
Edward Redhead, an 11-year-old boy under the care of the Awasis Child and Family Services (CFS) agency, is believed to have perished in the fire, although his identity has yet to be confirmed by police. The boy was missing for 63 hours before it was reported to the RCMP. Awasis didn't know one of its children in care on the reserve was missing until about 80 hours after the fire.
RCMP called the Office of the Fire Commissioner around 10 p.m. Monday night, three hours after police were alerted the boy was missing.
Sgt. Line Karpish, an RCMP media spokesperson in Winnipeg, said Jan. 6 police had no idea someone might have perished in the fire until a band councillor told them that a boy was missing two days later.
It was his grandparents' home that burned to the ground, and his grandparents initially told RCMP no one was home, police said. It appears the boy had been staying with his grandparents instead of his foster family over the holidays.
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. The boy usually lived in a foster home on the reserve. However, he was allowed to stay with relatives for a family visit during the holidays. Lands said Jan. 6 it appears all the proper standards and protocols were followed.
Following the fire, Awasis officials did a head-count of all 66 children in care in Shamattawa and took photos of each child. Every child was accounted for except one.
Just after 4 a.m. on Jan. 2, RCMP members in Shamattawa were dispatched to a house fire on Riverside Road. While at the scene RCMP members attempted to call the local fire department but could not get through to any volunteer firefighters to respond. Shamattawa has three volunteer firefighters and a full-time fire chief hired by the band. Nepoakesik said the fire chief was sleeping at his father's house when the fire broke out so he never received a phone call from RCMP about the fire.There is no 911 emergency phone service 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.
A civilian who was on the scene told police that he had seen the house fire, broken down the door of the residence and yelled out for anyone inside with no response back. Police were not able to enter the house due to flames and smoke.
The next day the RCMP found where the owners of the house - the paternal grandparents of the 11-year-old boy - were staying, and they did not say there was anyone in the residence at the time. Police also believed at this point the fire was only structural in nature. The grandparents had run out of heating fuel, so they locked their door and went to stay elsewhere.
On Jan. 4 a band councillor contacted the RCMP saying an 11-year-old boy had gone missing. Efforts to find the boy by the RCMP, local band constables and band councillors were unsuccessful.
Karpish says she is not sure who had custody of the child. The boy's grandmother says she is devastated by the news but does not know what happened to her grandson.
The search of the structure is continuing, and the cause of the fire is still under investigation.
Meanwhile, the province says it is launching a series of reviews into how the 11-year-old boy went missing before dying in the house fire early Saturday.
The reviews will also look into why Shamattawa's volunteer fire department didn't respond to the blaze.
Family Services Minister Gord Mackinstosh said it's also possible Manitoba's chief medical examiner will call an inquest to examine what happened and make recommendations to prevent a siimilar tragedy in the future..
"I'm bound and determined to get to the bottom of this," Mackintosh said Thursday. "I tell you, if there are shortcomings that are on the part of a child welfare agency we're going to make the immediate changes that are necessary."
Mackintosh also said provincial Children's Advocate Billie Schibler has also launched a review into the boy's death.
He said Schibler's recommendations will be public. Schibler has a broad mandate and could also examine Shamattawa's fire-fighting capacity.
Opposition Progressive Conservative Family Services critic Bonnie Mitchelson said any review has to look at "devolution" - how the NDP government handled turning over child welfare responsibilities to aboriginal-run agencies several years ago.
"It was rushed ahead without the proper training, without the proper protocols, without ensuring that people that were working in the system were trained and had the ability to put the safety of children first," she said.
