Support needed for community organizations after users die violently, advocate says

WARNING: This story contains details of graphic violence.

A peer support coordinator at Winnipeg's mobile overdose prevention site says staff were shocked to learn that the person shot and killed by police over a month ago was an Inuk man with a record of violence — someone they treated like family.

Winnipeg police said Jordan Charlie, 24, had an edged weapon but didn't drop it as officers told him to, and video posted to social media shows him take a couple steps toward them before he was shot dead outside a St. James-area bus shelter in late November. Nine shots can be heard.

Charlie, an Inuk man from Taloyoak, Nunavut, accessed homeless shelters and the Tunngasugit Inuit Resource Centre while in Winnipeg, as he had no family in the city, CBC News previously learned.

Ally Seidlitz, peer support coordinator at Winnipeg's mobile overdose prevention site, said Charlie frequented the site run by Sunshine House — a community drop-in and resource centre — and that staff grew fond of him.

"It feels like they've lost a family member," Seidlitz said.

"Going to the site the day after it was revealed to be Jordan, the main feeling was like, just why? Why did they have to shoot him so many times?"

Kate Kehler, executive director of the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg, says community work means more than just a paycheque for those who do it.

"It's a caring sector, so they care about their people. They understand the challenges they face and are doing everything that they can to try and support these individuals, but they are forever chronically under-resourced in order to be able to do it."

She says community workers need some sort of aid when someone they've helped care for dies violently.

"If somebody was impacted by a violent death, whether or not it's ever deemed criminal, there should be some support," Kehler said.

"Just like with a toxic drug death [or] any death of somebody that you have a relationship with — that you've worked with, that you've cared for, that you've laughed with — is going to impact you."

'Everyone deserves compassion'

CBC News asked the city whether it offers any support to community organizations that assisted people who later died during interactions with police, but a spokesperson deferred comment to Winnipeg police, and police deferred comment to the organizations.

A provincial spokesperson said Manitoba's victim services program is designed to only support those who are the victim of certain Criminal Code offences, or who witnessed them.

Seidlitz believes community organizations deserve some form of support from the city when one of their clients dies the way Charlie did.

"When all of those organizations, and therefore the city, have failed this person, I think it's them who should be offering the support, because I think, like, no one really knows what to do when these things happen and I don't think the support is really there," she said.

While Seidlitz does have access to therapy through her employee benefits, she says not all community workers are so lucky.

"I think making low-barrier [and] low-cost therapy more accessible to everyone, especially frontline workers, is crucial."

Charlie was stuck in Winnipeg after finishing a sentence at Stony Mountain Institution, having been sent there in September 2019 to serve more than four years for two unprovoked, violent attacks in Yellowknife.

He had chronic mental health issues and other conditions, such as fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, a traumatic brain injury, oppositional defiant disorder, intellectual disability and low cognitive function, according to a Parole Board of Canada decision from 2023.

Shortly before he was shot, police said officers were carrying out a "project" as part of the retail theft initiative near Winnipeg's Unicity Shopping Centre, and that Charlie had stabbed an officer in the neck before guns were drawn.

Seidlitz says she believes Charlie might have been stealing food in the lead-up to the stabbing.

He had just been released from custody five days before his death, after finishing a different sentence for assault and weapons-related charges connected to a string of violent incidents in the city between February and June 2024.

It's difficult for Seidlitz to come to terms with the fact that the person she knew committed those crimes, but she says Charlie was dealt "a really, really, really tough hand in this life."

She hopes people can try to be empathetic and understand Charlie's circumstances before making judgments about his violent history, saying someone in a crisis state who faces challenges is eventually going to "do something rash."

Seidlitz remembers Charlie as a silly and sweet person.

"I think everyone is capable of doing things that they're not proud of, but I think that everyone deserves compassion on the other end of that," she said.

"The real heartbreak of all of this is that he's never going to get to be more than that, like, he's never going to get to outgrow those circumstances and prove everyone wrong."