Police obtain first search warrant to look for stolen goods in homeless camp

In an unprecedented move, Winnipeg police obtained a search warrant before descending on a homeless camp in a public park on Waterfront Drive to look for suspected stolen goods in a wooden-frame structure.

“We are cognizant of the fact that this structure may be someone’s temporary shelter, given its location within an encampment area. So, we have treated this like any other criminal investigation in the city of Winnipeg that involves a person’s residence by obtaining a search warrant,” said Winnipeg Police Service Insp. Helen Peters at a news conference next to the riverside camp near Fort Douglas Park Wednesday afternoon.

Peters said it is the first time the service went to the effort of getting a warrant to search a structure in a homeless camp, and said she didn’t believe police had ever searched encampments “without being welcomed in.”

“We are very well aware of the housing crisis that currently exists within our city, and we are very well aware that many of the people that are currently unhoused do live in temporary shelters, such as the one that we executed this warrant on today, and so we didn’t want to be presumptive,” she said.

Three people were arrested after multiple bicycles and bike parts were found in the riverbank structure that was draped in tarps. Peters said the investigation was continuing and that no charges have been laid.

A stretch of the path along Waterfront Drive near Fort Douglas Park remained blocked off by police into the afternoon while officers collected more than a dozen bikes, stacks of rubber and assorted bike parts from inside the structure.

Peters said the arrests are part of a larger investigation into stolen goods.

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The structure will remain as is, and if the three people arrested are released, they will be able to return to it.

“I want to be clear that police are not here to clear or evict anyone from their temporary shelter,” Peters said.

The decision to get a warrant doesn’t sit well with John Giavedoni, who heads the Residents of the Exchange District Group. While he was happy to see police take the initiative to seize stolen goods, he called the process of getting a search warrant “a stretch,” noting that fire and paramedic workers regularly go to the encampment.

“I want to be clear that police are not here to clear or evict anyone from their temporary shelter.”–Winnipeg Police Service Insp. Helen Peters

“If I sleep in your backyard tonight, that doesn’t make it my home,” he said.

“These aren’t permanent structures. They’re not areas that are meant to be someone’s home… I think it’s a stretch to say that this is a home and that the police would require a search warrant to go in and look for criminal activity.”

Theft has been a persistent issue for area residents, Giavedoni said.

“We have asked the police a number of times to take action to what is clearly illegal activity, and I’m very happy to hear that they have done so.”

By securing a search warrant, police head off any argument they have breached an investigative target’s expectation of privacy, a local legal expert said.

“I think the police were trying to… be very careful with this, because there has been a tendency in the courts of late to interpret a reasonable expectation of privacy in a very broad sense,” said the expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“I think they are saying, ‘Hey, we don’t want to be caught off guard here with a potential challenge later, and a finding by a court that this encampment or, in a different situation, a bus shelter, should be interpreted as someone’s residence.’”

Warrantless searches by default are presumed to be a Charter breach, the expert said. The presence of a search warrant puts the onus on an accused to show that the search was unreasonable.

“It puts the accused in the position of having to argue (against the validity of the search) instead of the Crown having to defend the actions from the start,” the expert said.

Joggers and bikers using the path were being turned away by police Wednesday afternoon.

One cyclist, Peter Paolucci, takes the trail to get to work. He said he wasn’t surprised to learn a number of bikes had been found in the camp, in part because he had noticed more tarps being put up along the riverbank in the last week.

“It wasn’t a cover for rain, it was more of hiding things,” he said after being turned away on the trail.

He said he won’t let his own bike out of his sight.

“I don’t leave it out, I don’t even lock it, I don’t leave it unattended… a lock is an inconvenience for them,” he said.

The provincial government has pledged to end chronic homelessness in Manitoba by 2031 through its Your Way Home strategy.

Nearly 70 people have moved from encampments into largely social housing through the strategy, a government source told the Free Press this week. About 700 people are currently living in encampments in Manitoba.

— With files from Dean Pritchard

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

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Malak Abas
Reporter

Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.

Every piece of reporting Malak produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.