On the night table: Robert Everett-Green

City denies teen received ‘life-altering injuries’ from police dog bite in lawsuit defence

City officials have denied a 17-year-old girl’s claim she received life-altering injuries when a Winnipeg police dog bit her, arguing her lawsuit over last year’s incident should be rejected.

The teen, whom the Free Press is not naming because she is a minor involved with a police matter, seeks unspecified damages from the City of Winnipeg, in a statement of claim filed in the Court of King’s Bench in March.

The teen, described as “a small, slightly built girl,” claims she was “attacked, arrested and detained” by several Winnipeg Police Service officers around 1 a.m. on June 4, 2025.

The girl’s court papers say that in order to detain the teen, officers first deployed “a large, vicious and dangerous, non-human, canine animal,” which the lawsuit calls the “beast” in subsequent references.

On the night table: Robert Everett-Green

Author, In a Wide CountryA novel can bring you into intimate contact with a character you’d normally take pains to avoid. I recently finished Irish-Canadian writer Anakana Schofield’s Martin John, in which Schofield takes a deep dive into the mind of a deluded loner who enjoys holding his urine and exposing himself to women. It’s an uncomfortable read, though often quite funny, and sometimes reminiscent of Schofield’s Irish literary forebears, including Samuel Beckett and Flann O’Brien. My current non-fiction reading is Chelsea Vowel’s Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis & Inuit Issues in Canada. Vowel, a Métis lawyer and activist from Lac-Ste. Anne, Alta., offers a crash course in the various ways Indigenous peoples relate to issues of culture, identity and justice. She also explodes many commonly held myths while writing in a clear and accessible style. Canada would be a better place if every Canadian would read this book.

Fringe reviews #14: You’ve earned extra lives

World Peace Through Humour, Emil Amok, Erika MacDonald, Evie & Alfie, The Late, Great Mormon Drag Queen, Mennonite Metamorphosis, Panic A Live Radio Musical, Qualia, Solovela, Your Boring Story

Fringe reviews #15: Button-mashing mayhem

Babel, Chase Padgett, Dirk Darrow, The Glass Between Us, K-Tel Demon Hunters, Mr. Richard, Penny Ashton, Grant Canyon, Rocky Horror Show, Wisecracks for Weirdos

Outreach centre rife with drug use, needles, but daycare, community members say safety concerns go unheard

Children at an Osborne Village daycare are routinely exposed to discarded needles, human feces and drug use, prompting growing safety concerns from parents, residents and business owners.

The concerns centre on Augustine Centre at River Avenue and Osborne Street, where SPLASH Child Care shares the building with Oak Table, a drop-in operated by 1JustCity that provides meals, wellness and addiction supports, along with programs that help people build skills, and secure housing and employment.

The daycare looks after 132 children, from just a few months old to age 12.

Lesley Massey, executive director of the daycare, said parents fear for their children’s safety.

Fringe reviews #12: Game over? Not even close

52 STORIES 

Dave Morris

Théâtre Cercle Molière (Venue 3), to July 26

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