Parole board revokes statutory release of alleged assailant in random beating at The Forks

Parole records have revealed new details of a random assault at The Forks in June — including an allegation the attacker stole the victim’s turban after the brutal beating.

Daniel Christopher Dumas, 33, was arrested in July, a month after he was accused of randomly assaulting and robbing a 30-year-old man at The Forks late on June 6, as well as a robbery and assault at a beer vendor in West Broadway and an attempted River Heights break-in hours later.

He had been unlawfully at large for months at that point.

The Parole Board of Canada revoked Dumas’s statutory release in a decision issued late last month, meaning he’ll have to serve out the full remainder of his sentence.

He was, most recently, sentenced to two years less a day in June 2024 for a February 2022 assault with a knife committed while he was on conditional release from prison.

The parole document provides new information about the June incidents and his brief spell outside of federal prison walls.

The decision notes Dumas qualified for statutory release — which most federal prisoners are automatically granted after serving two-thirds of their sentence — on New Year’s Eve last year.

Dumas was ordered to live at a federal halfway house, but just 10 days later, on Jan. 9, he failed to return for his evening curfew, the new parole board decision said.

He didn’t rack up any further charges until his alleged spree in June.

“You are alleged to have attacked a man in a public place unprovoked causing the victim to fall to the ground, you then are alleged to have utilized your feet to stomp on his face and head after which you stole his turban,” the parole record says of the attack at The Forks.

Further, the document said, the attack at the beer vendor allegedly involved repeated punches to the 37-year-old victim. Dumas is also accused of making off with that victim’s purse.

He was reportedly caught on tape trying to get into a River Heights home, after he had allegedly rummaged through an unlocked vehicle in the home’s garage.

Winnipeg Police Service officers went to a Jefferson Avenue apartment block to find Dumas on July 6. They found him, but police allege Dumas jumped from a third-floor window and tried to flee, running down the back lane. Officers chased him and used a Taser to get him into handcuffs.

He was charged with two counts of robbery and one each of break-and-enter, theft under $5,000, resisting arrest and being unlawfully at large.

The parole board interviewed him later in July.

Dumas told parole officials he left his halfway house because he was “put in the same room as an offender with a ‘bad crime,’” then decided he wasn’t comfortable and couldn’t stay, the board’s decision said.

He also said he had been detained in a traffic stop the day he absconded and panicked that if he got a ticket, he would have his release automatically suspended, the decision said.

Further, Dumas told officials, he “stayed out of trouble for a while,” while he was unlawfully at large, but began drinking alcohol regularly with a girlfriend.

“You report your charges involved influence from alcohol consumption and you identified the impact of alcohol on your offending,” reads the board’s decision.

Dumas was sentenced to 12 years and eight months of federal prison time in 2013. He pleaded guilty to taking part in the 2011 gang-related manslaughter of 21-year-old Tyler St. Paul in the Milner Ridge jail, northeast of Winnipeg. He was also sentenced for several assaults, an arson and a weapon offences.

He’s also been sentenced for offences committed while behind bars in November 2016, June and August 2019 and June 2021.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca