Mother held in daughter’s stabbing

The Kativik Regional Police Force arrested a Kuujjuaq woman on May 16 in connection with the stabbing of her 23-year-old daughter.

The woman faces two charges in relation to the incident: assault causing bodily harm and assault with a weapon.

Cpl. George Okpik, the KRPF’s information and recruiting officer, said alcohol was involved in the stabbing.

“I didn’t get into the specifics with my superiors but they said drunkenness was definitely involved,” Okpik said.

According to Okpik, the incident began around 3 p.m. on Friday, May 16 – the start of the May long-weekend. Police officers received a call reporting domestic violence. When three officers arrived on scene, they found the victim had been stabbed twice. They medevaced the young woman to a Montreal hospital for treatment and arrested her mother.

The young woman spent about a week in Montreal, Okpik said, but is now recovering in Kuujjuaq.

The woman’s mother is in preventative custody in the South until she makes her first court appearance.

The KRPF would not release the woman’s name until that time, Okpik said.

Alcohol-related crimes are a well-known problem in Nunavik. In 2002, KRPF police chief Brian Jones attributed a growing number of assaults to drug and alcohol abuse.

In 2000, the KRPF recorded a total of 525 assaults in Nunavik – 199 for the Ungava Bay region and 326 for the Hudson Bay area. The next year, the number of assaults reached 723 – 229 for the Ungava Bay and 429 for the Hudson Bay region.

In January 2002, police recorded 56 assaults for that month alone and the high number prompted Jones to say that if the trend continued there would likely be 700 assaults that year as well.

Though the KRPF is mounting a successful campaign against contraband alcohol and drugs, the inflow of illegal substances continues to be a problem in the region.