Questions raised in wake of 2 Inuit women's deaths in Montreal days apart
Friends, family believe could have been foul play in at least 1 case
Siasi Tullaugak and Sharon Barron, both 27, died two days apart in incidents police say are unrelated, but the community says the way their deaths are being treated is emblematic of the obstacles Inuit women face in Montreal.
Tullaugak was found dead on the balcony of her downtown apartment on Aug. 28, and Barron's body was found inside her home in Dorval two days later.
Urgences Santé told CBC News, without confirming the women's names, that the deaths of two 27-year-old women found at those locations were being treated as suicides.
But staff at shelters that Tullaugak and Barron frequented said the women's friends believe there's more to their cases.
Tullaugak's sister told CBC News her sister didn't appear suicidal. She said earlier on the day she died, Tullaugak told her she felt someone was putting her life in danger but was too afraid to say who it was.
David Chapman, the director of Open Door shelter, said one of the shelter's outreach workers had to intervene between a police officer and a friend of Tullaugak's.
Witness shrugged off at first
Chapman said the friend had told police he had seen Tullaugak a little more than an hour before her death, in the company of a man. He said he heard a scream. Chapman said the friend could provide exact times for the events he witnessed, including hearing police sirens approach Tullaugak's building.
Chapman said he believes officers may not have been receptive to Tullaugak's friend's story because of a run-in he'd had with police in the past.
"It's small scenarios like this that make you raise an eyebrow and wonder if there is more that could be done that isn't being done," Chapman told CBC News at a vigil Friday evening at Cabot Square.
Const. Carlo DeAngelis, a Montreal police Aboriginal liaison officer, said investigators "went as far as they could" but that "there's always room for a second look if there's more information that's brought forward."
Women 'generous, outgoing'
Dozens gathered at the vigil, including friends, family and concerned citizens, many clutching candles and roses.
Some wept as they waved at and kissed Tullaugak and Barron's pictures.
Tullaugak and Barron came to Montreal from communities in Nunavik, the Inuit territory of northern Quebec, and both had been in the process of "trying to break free of street life," Chapman said.
He described Tullaugak as feisty, a woman who, despite having a small frame, could stick up for herself, "yet she was also known to be generous to others."
Barron was "friendly and outgoing," the kind of person to greet people she was close to with a hug as soon as she saw them, Chapman said.
He'd been in the process of trying to get her a ticket to fly home to Puvirnituq after she'd told him she wanted to go back to Nunavik.
"Things unfortunately did not come together in time, and she didn't make it," he said.
Nakuset, the executive director of the Native Women's Shelter of Montreal, helped organize the vigil. She said she wanted to highlight the women's lives and hoped their stories would shed light on the lack of services for Indigenous people in the city.
"The point of the vigil is to try to get people to come together to mourn and to be outraged and to figure out how we're going to, as a community, solve this problem because the government is not really helping us," she said.
"I know these two young ladies came to Montreal to find a better way of life … one was a mother. They were somebody's sister. It's just a real tragedy."
Need for more services
Nakuset said many members of the Inuit community don't trust Montreal police because of other cases where they felt shrugged off or mistreated.
She believes there's a need for more 24-hour shelters and for a shelter that won't turn people away if they've been drinking, "so people can get off the street, be in a safe place, and there are services there."
With files from Matt D'Amours