Quebec investigators visit Nunavik community to probe death of teen

Members of Quebec’s independent investigation agency have wrapped up a two-day trip to Salluit to look into the police response to a Jan. 27 death in that community.

The Kativik Regional Police Force received a call early Jan. 27 requesting that police help find a 15-year-old girl who had gone missing.

Officers searched for the teen from about 3:30 to 4:30 a.m. that Sunday morning, but blizzard conditions in the Nunavik community of 1,500 made it difficult to see anything.

It was only later that Sunday afternoon that police discovered the body of the young woman under a house. She had apparently died of exposure to the cold.

Sources in the community say the teenager was drinking alcohol early Jan. 27, given to her by an adult at the home she was visiting that morning.

The girl and an acquaintance reportedly left the residence together that morning, at which point she went missing.

Her disappearance was reported to police around 3 a.m. that morning, but the 15-year-old was only found more than 12 hours later.

Because she is a minor, authorities have not released the victim’s name.

Later that week, the KRPF reported the incident to the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes (BEI), which investigates the police response to incidents in which civilians are seriously injured or killed.

BEI investigators were delayed getting to Salluit due to poor weather conditions, arriving Feb. 1 for a 24-hour period.

A spokesperson for the BEI said it is the first time anyone at the agency can recall investigating a search for a missing person that later ended in the victim’s death.

The agency will only respond to incidents that are signaled to them, the spokesperson said.

In October 2017, an 11-year-old girl in Umiujaq went missing and was found dead outside the community days later. She, too, died of exposure but had been drinking alcohol when she went missing.

Police later ruled the death of Alacie Inukpuk as accidental.

Although the girl was reported missing, the KRPF never signaled the incident to the BEI.

In another separate incident in Umiujaq in 2018, the KRPF allegedly struck a woman with their police truck as they moved in to arrest her.

But that incident was only reported to the BEI months later, after La Presse published an article on the woman’s extensive injuries.