The Black Rod

When selecting a Newsmaker of the Year for 2018, the Winnipeg Free Press delegated the job to their readers.  Apparently the newspaper has nobody on staff with enough news sense to be capable of sifting through the year's stories to determine who had the biggest influence on Manitobans. So the FP went with the readers' choice---Tina Fontaine, who was described as the "heartbreaking catalyst for change." The fact that she had been dead for four years was not a strike against her. It was the death of the fragile 15-year-old girl whose body was discarded in a blanket in the Red River that made her what she is today -- an icon of the missing and murdered aboriginal women movement. "... Tina's story was a primary driving force behind a public inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls, which the federal government granted in 2016," wrote Niigaan Sinclair, the author of the Newsmaker 2018 story. Sinclair normally writes an opinion co...

He's retiring? Winnipeg Police Chief Devon "Mack Daddy" Clunis is retiring? How old is he? It seems he just started in his job and he's taking a flyer already? Clunis is about 52 and he got the job as police chief barely 3 1/2 years ago.  That means he was 48 when hired, so whoever hired him had every reason to believe he would stick around for a long time. Especially given all the big talk from Clunis when he started the job.  He was going to literally change the culture of policing in Winnipeg.  Police weren't going to be crime fighters so much as social workers, offering soft shoulders to cry on, strong arms to gather the broken, and sympathetic ears to hear the chorus of sad stories. Blah blah blah . If you listen to Mack Daddy today, he's done all that. Mission accomplished, he said when announcing his departure. Sick healed. Blind seeing. Lame walking. Geez, the guys a candidate for Christ as his next job. Oh, and he wants to spend more time...

Killing a myth is a lot like killing a Hydra.  Lop off one head and two equally hideous grow back. Tina Fontaine became the poster girl of the murdered and missing aboriginal women movement. Like Doublemint gum, she was two, two, two in one---missing AND murdered. The biggest myth regarding 15-year-old Tina was also the most endearing to the M&M crowd --- only hours before she disappeared,  to be eventually killed by a person or persons unknown, two Winnipeg policemen had her in their custody but let her go her merry way despite the fact that she had been reported as a missing person.  If only they had done their job, she would be alive today. If only, if only... Then, fourteen months ago (yes, a year and two months ago) The Black Rod reported exclusively that Tina Fontaine WAS NOT MISSING when the police met up with her in the early morning of Aug. 8, 2014.  Nobody informed police that she was a missing person until the following day, Aug. 9, 2014. ...

One year after teenager Tina Fontaine's body was discovered  in the Red River, two memorial events were held.  One was on the Sagkeeng Reserve where she was raised by a great- aunt from the age of three;  another, much smaller, was at the Alexander Docks near where her body was located accidentally by a search party looking for someone else. The news media was out in force, feeding on the grief.  But none of the "professional journalists" seemed to notice that one important person wasn't at either of these gatherings. Tina's mother. At first glance, maybe it came as no surprise that Valentina Duck wasn't there. She's persona non grata on the reserve, where the responsible side of the family blames her for leading her departed 15-year-old daughter deep into the dark side where the seeds of her death are thought to lie. But her absence at the Alexander Docks is more troubling. The inner city is her turf. There's more than one connection wi...

Fifteen-year-old Tina Fontaine was pregnant at the time she was killed. That's just a smidgen of what her older brother Charles revealed during an interview last week with the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) in which he delivered a carpet bombing of details about Tina's sad life, horrific death, dysfunctional family and possibly murderous associates. He blamed his and Tina's mother for getting Tina hooked on the hard drug crystal meth and into prostitution.  He said his mother told him she was disowning him and "that if she ever sees me she's going to beat the shit out of me just like she did to Tina." This provides confirmation of a statement made a year ago when the Winnipeg Free Press interviewed Thelma Favel, who raised Tina Fontaine, on the Sagkeeng Reserve from when she was a child.   "... Fontaine claimed she had been beaten up by her mother and even texted pictures of her face, (Favel) said." (Winnipeg Free Press, ...

Winnipeg Police issued a false news release Wednesday that was designed to mislead the public while simultaneously making two serving officers into scapegoats for Chief Devon Clunis. Here's how most relevant portion of the news release read: Winnipeg Police Professional Standards Investigation The Winnipeg Police Homicide Unit has been actively investigating the murder of Tina Fontaine since August, 2014. This investigation is on-going. Numerous people have been interviewed, and a number of forensic tests have been conducted.   During the course of the investigation, Homicide investigators discovered that Tina Fontaine was reported as a missing person on July 31st, 2014. Investigators also discovered that two members of the Winnipeg Police Service had contact with Ms. Fontaine on August 8th, 2014, approximately 24 hours before her disappearance.   Chief Clunis was informed of these events on September 3rd, 2014, and immediately direct...

Winnipeg Police Chief Devon "Mack Daddy" Clunis is a big believer in prayer, and right now he's praying you don't find out that he might have been responsible for why teen runaway Tina Fontaine wasn't picked up by police the day before she was last seen alive. By now everyone knows that two officers spoke with 15-year-old Tina Fontaine in the wee hours of August 8 after stopping a vehicle in which she was a passenger.  They took down her name, we're told, then sent her on her way.  But at the time, so the story goes, she had been reported to police as missing, and should have been apprehended. The police department revealed the contact with Tina last month and announced an internal investigation of the circumstances.  Friday, Clunis said the resulting report would be sent to the Crown Attorney's office for review, implying that charges could be laid against the two police officers. What he failed to say is that Tina Fontaine was probably released b...