Accused said he was on edge

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This article was published 17/04/2015 (3808 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A troubled Winnipeg teen accused of a vicious attack on a fellow ward of Child and Family Services had recently warned friends he was reaching his breaking point, the Free Press has learned.

Much of the 15-year-old boy’s anger focused on social workers who placed him in a downtown hotel about a month before the April 1 incident. He claimed CFS employees were being physically abusive while other kids in care were frequently bullying him.

The teen, who can’t be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, has no criminal record. He is charged with aggravated assault and aggravated sexual assault against a 15-year-old girl who was placed in the same hotel by CFS. He allegedly raped and beat her in a parkade near the hotel. Doctors had to put her in a coma during her treatment.

It’s not clear what kind of CFS supervision was in place at the time of the incident. CFS and provincial officials have declined to comment on specifics of the case.

The victim’s family agreed to remove the girl from life-support Wednesday and she remained in grave condition Thursday.

Charges against the 15-year-old boy would likely be upgraded if she doesn’t recover.

The Free Press has uncovered details about the accused through multiple justice sources and two people who knew him well — a 19-year-old woman who befriended him earlier this year and became like a big sister, and her mother, who became a surrogate parent of sorts.

Both requested their names not be published because of safety concerns.

The details raise additional questions about the conditions and supervision at hotels that are used as shelters for at-risk youth — a practice the provincial government said will end on June 1.

According to the mother and daughter, the boy grew up on a First Nation north of Winnipeg and was seized by social workers several years ago, along with his older sister, and placed in foster care in Winnipeg.

“The family were all alcoholics,” the mother said of the initial seizure.

Two justice sources said Thursday the boy is believed to have fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, which both the women confirmed.

Sources say there have been major concerns about his behaviour, including sexual thoughts and impulses that he expressed.

The mother and daughter say the situation got worse around the beginning of March, when the boy was removed from his longtime foster family. They’re not sure what happened, but said it left him without a stable place to call home.

“They basically told him he didn’t live there anymore,” the mother said.

The quick fix was to place him in the downtown hotel, like so many other CFS wards.

“He hated it there. He was getting made fun of by the kids,” his 19-year-old friend said Thursday.

Her mother recalled a specific phone conversation in which the boy began screaming at one of his workers to get away from him.

There were several nights last month when the boy suddenly showed up at their house, hoping to spend the night.

The mother and daughter say they would always let him in to warm up, but would quickly contact one of his CFS workers.

“He doesn’t really have any family here, so he’d come to our place,” the mother said.

She said CFS would always thank them, then ask that they take him back to the hotel and sign him in because he was considered absent without leave.

“So we would take him there, and they’d let him sign in and let him leave again,” the mother claims.

“They wouldn’t keep him inside. They’d let these kids go all over, walking the streets. There were times he’d be wearing the same clothes for a week, just living on the streets.”

There were also times, the mother and daughter said, they turned him away, believing he was intoxicated or high on drugs. One night in late March, he didn’t take the rejection well and kicked the wall of their apartment complex, leaving a large hole.

“He’s probably a good kid deep down, but he’s got issues, probably from being in foster care for so long,” the mother said.

On the night of the attack, the boy was back at the hotel. And he wasn’t happy. In a telephone conversation with his 19-year-old friend, he said he couldn’t take it much longer.

“He was saying he was going to go do something. He said ‘I gotta go, I gotta go do something,’ ” the woman said. She said his anger that night seemed focused on a female teen who was also staying at the hotel.

That was the last time they spoke. The accused remains in custody at the Manitoba Youth Centre, where he is being held without bail.

Family members of the victim also expressed anger with CFS this week.

They said they reached out to CFS for help, and they urged others to avoid making the same mistakes.

“They were asked for help. I’m definitely pissed off at them. I reached out, I had my mom, my daughter was in my mom’s care and we tried support workers, everything we could except for CFS, but it came down to the point where we needed to ask them for help and this is the help we got,” the girl’s mother said. “I would strongly advise people not to ask CFS for help.”

She said her daughter plays basketball and volleyball and loves life.

She didn’t provide details about why CFS seized the girl from her care.

The provincial government has vowed to create 71 emergency foster-home spaces and hire 210 child-care workers during the next two years.

In January, 10,673 children were in care — 400 more compared with the previous year.

It’s the highest proportion of children apprehended in the country, with the majority of them being aboriginal.

The province and the CFS agency tasked with caring for the girl are both conducting internal reviews. The Office of the Children’s Advocate will do its own review.

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