First Nation safety officer admits to sex attacks on three women

A Manitoba man entrusted with keeping his First Nation safe has admitted to sexually assaulting three women.

Dwayne Glenn Berens, 50, pleaded guilty Wednesday to three sexual assaults committed between December 2011 and August 2025.

At the time of the most recent assault, Berens was a safety officer with Bloodvein First Nation. First Nation safety officers are classified as peace officers and perform many of the same duties as police officers on First Nations that do not have a police service of their own.

Berens, who appeared via video from Headingley Correctional Centre, fidgeted in his seat as Crown attorney Devan Reid read out an agreed statement of facts detailing his crimes.

In the most recent assault, Berens was at South Beach Casino when he met a woman he knew and offered to put her drinks on his tab. When the bar closed at 1 a.m., Berens picked up more alcohol in his room and accompanied the woman to her room, where after drinking for a time, Berens pressured her for sex.

The woman told Berens no, saying she had a boyfriend, and tried to push him away.

The intoxicated woman “became frightened of how Mr. Berens would physically react if she pulled away and… eventually replied ‘yes’ to Mr. Berens in an effort end the interaction,” says the agreed statement of facts.

Berens repeatedly sexually assaulted the woman as she slipped in and out of consciousness.

Eventually, Berens “got up and dressed himself, laughed, and then left the room.”

The woman reported the incident to RCMP the next day and he was arrested two days later.

In early 2020, Berens was taking safety officer training at a Winnipeg hotel when he met up with a female acquaintance who found herself without a room.

Berens asked the woman to have a drink with him, promising her “that she would have a safe place to stay in his hotel room if she decided to drink,” says the agreed statement of facts.

Berens and the woman later returned to his hotel room, where Berens lunged at her, saying he was “getting something out of this.”

Berens ripped off the woman’s shirt and bra, told her “rape victims like it rough,” and pulled her arm behind her back, saying it was a move he had learned in his safety officer training class.

The woman freed herself from Berens, grabbed her shirt, ran out of the room and saw a security guard outside the door.

The woman “asked him for help and the guard smirked at her and said he and Mr. Berens were ‘buddies,’” says the agreed statement of facts. “He did not assist her.”

The woman ran out of the hotel and hid in her car until a family member picked her up.

In the 2011 assault, Berens punched the victim in the head before having forced sex with her.

Berens will be sentenced at a later date following the completion of reports examining his background. He remains in custody.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca