WINNIPEG – A teenage girl who was critically injured in a beating in downtown Winnipeg was staying in a nearby hotel in the care of Child and Family Services, the province has confirmed.
“I am deeply troubled that this has happened to a child in the care of Child and Family Services,” a tearful Family Services Minister Kerri Irvin-Ross told reporters Wednesday afternoon. “We have a responsibility to protect children in our care and provide them with places of safety.”
VIDEO: Family Services Minister speaks to media regarding assault of teen in CFS care
Global News learned earlier Wednesday of the latest tragedy involving a teen supposedly in the care of provincial child welfare workers.
Police would not reveal the age or identity of the female victim of a “serious assault” in the CityPlace parkade at Hargrave Street and St. Mary Avenue. Officers found the victim after being flagged down at about 4:50 a.m. Wednesday. She was taken to hospital and remains in critical condition, police said.
VIDEO: Scene of serious downtown assault
But a resident of a downtown hotel, within a few blocks of the crime scene, told Global News the victim is a teenage girl who is one of a group of teens accommodated in the hotel by provincial child care workers.
RELATED: Slain Manitoba teen’s social services involvement reviewed
The resident, also a teenage girl, described herself as a friend of the victim who was hanging around in a group outside the hotel early Wednesday morning.
“I went inside and took my little friends with me because I knew something bad was going to happen, and I told (the victim) and (the victim’s friend) to come in too, but they didn’t come in, they decided to stay outside,” the girl told Global News. “They’re hanging outside and (hotel security) told us that, like, if we didn’t come in they were going to kick us out. That’s why I brought my two little friends with me.”
Other sources within the justice system confirmed the assault victim is a female youth staying at that particular hotel.
Global News isn’t identifying the hotel. The province has already faced criticism for the number of children in its care who are accommodated in hotels, often with little supervision and in potentially dangerous parts of town.
Irvin-Ross announced Wednesday that existing plans to stop using hotels to house CFS kids will be sped up.
VIDEO: Province confident they will meet deadline to take children in CFS care out of hotels
“Today’s horrible tragedy shows that we need to move faster. Therefore I have ordered the department to immediately find alternative safe places for children who are currently in hotels,” she said.
The teenage girl who spoke to Global News Wednesday outside the downtown hotel where she’d been placed by CFS said there is “lots of supervision, we’re not allowed to go anywhere without our staff, but once we’re off the property they don’t follow us.”
Irvin-Ross said staff have a hands-off policy, they won’t restrain kids who try to leave hotels.
READ MORE: Manitoba wants fewer kids in care put up in hotels
Child and Family Services is still facing questions about its involvement with Tina Fontaine, the 15-year-old found dead in the Red River in Winnipeg in August. Investigations by Child and Family Services and the Manitoba Children’s Advocate are underway.
READ MORE: CFS review of slain teen Tina Fontaine’s care should be public: PCs
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