RCMP major crimes unit investigates suspicious death in Rankin Inlet
One person taken into custody Friday morning after body found, search for suspect launched
One person is in custody after RCMP asked people in Rankin Inlet to stay indoors early Friday due to a man seen with a firearm. (File photo)
One person is in custody after police officers discovered a body early Friday in Rankin Inlet, according to Nunavut RCMP.
A news release issued Friday afternoon did not say whether charges had been laid. However, Nunavut RCMP’s major crimes unit “is taking over the investigation,” according to the release by RCMP spokesperson Cpl. George Henrie.
Police did not release any information about the identity, age or gender of the either person who died or the person who was taken into custody.
Officers found the body around 1 a.m. Friday. Police did not disclose the cause of death, however police considered it suspicious. The RCMP identified a suspect and began a search, the release said.
Around 3 a.m., RCMP posted on Facebook, asking people in Rankin Inlet to stay indoors because of a man seen with a firearm in what it described as a blue housing truck.
An hour later, RCMP posted again, asking people to stay away from the area near the shooting range.
At approximately 10:30 a.m., the suspect was arrested without incident, Henrie said in the release.
Nunatsiaq News asked Henrie if the incident has been ruled a homicide.
In an email, he said the investigation is ongoing and further information cannot be released.
Early Friday afternoon, the Government of Nunavut announced Rankin Inlet’s beer and wine store will be closed Friday and Saturday and reopen Tuesday at noon local time.
The Finance Department’s corporate policy director, Hillary Casey, told said the decision was made due to incidents that occurred in the community Friday morning.
This is the second incident of this nature in Rankin Inlet in as many weeks. RCMP warned the public of a “possible danger to the public” on May 30 which led to an emergency alert.
In that incident, a man was arrested and charged with careless use of a firearm and possession of a firearm while prohibited, said Henrie.
Regrettably, a homicide took place in Rankin Inlet last night, and the alleged perpetrator is currently in custody.
It is disconcerting that the leaders have not taken decisive action. Additionally, the prioritization of opening a liquor store before establishing a rehabilitation center in the region raises pressing concerns.
Without intervention, the territory risks being unable to adequately respond to all incidents, exacerbating the already alarming crime levels in Nunavut.
What are ‘our leaders’ supposed to do about this homicide? Follow the guy around lecturing him?
No, He’ll just be banned from Rankin and dumped in Iqaluit where all the previous convicts go..
You clearly do not understand the main idea behind my message. Rather than opening a bar and restaurant, leaders should have considered establishing a facility to help individuals with addiction, such as a rehabilitation center, in the area. prior to opening a B&W.
It’s 2024 and people need to start acting like humans and not like animals. A Beer store didn’t cause this, bootleggers have been around since the beginning of time selling hard liquor. It’s time to start really punishing people for their crimes in Nunavut, not just a slap on the hand and told not to do it again. Real jail time in the south will deter some from acting like animals because they will quickly find out they are nothing but a number in the south penial system and not put on a pedestal like up here in the north.
This community has endured too much sadness since the beer and wine store opened. We do not have the resources to handle it yet. Please close it down until the proper supports are in place.
People will still drink regardless if the B&W is open or not. Rankin also already has a ‘healing centre’. The issue is deeper than access to alcohol…
The rehabilitation facility operates similarly to Baffin correctional center, with a high rate of recidivism among its clients. Evidently, the establishment does not effectively serve its intended purpose of facilitating rehabilitation from drugs and alcohol. Additionally, there is a concerning pattern of recurring incidents involving domestic abuse, disturbances of the peace, and cases of homicide in Rankin Inlet.
The issue is clearly NOT the beer & wine store. The hard liquor and drug use here is several times higher per capita than in civilized communities. If one thinks the beer and wine sales are contributing than the RCMP need to report alcohol related incidents to the NULC for indefinite suspension. The fewer low alcohol products that are available, the higher the amount of hard stuff comes in.
The B&W has certainly had a negative effect on this community’s vulnerable. However, the amount of bootlegged hard alcohol has skyrocketed. When the Territorial Liquor Act allows for the import of 7 litres each and every day, that’s an issue. The only people importing that much on a regular basis are the bootleggers. No normal person requires that much alcohol. It’s gotten so bad that bootleggers are opening selling in the open, delivering it in company vehicles, etc.
The liquor control office would have records of who is importing what and in what quantities. Why the Territorial Government refuses to amend the act is mind boggling. Can’t blame the local detachment, they are hamstrung by overburdened staff who can barely keep up with the madness.
The last time I seen it this bad was in another community. That was resolved by bringing up undercover officers, but, as we all know, these people are like the Hydra. You cut one head off and another appears. Sad days. My heart hurts for everyone involved.
We have people saying Housing isn’t addressing their problems
Just the other day seen couple staff members driving a housing truck to pick up their booze order.
Very cool, and I saw a man towing a boat with a GN truck (health department).
What does housing have to do with what happened? Smh.
That’s probably right, ‘And then…’
Also, curious that NN would state: “… a man seen with a firearm in what it described as a blue housing truck.” instead of ” … described as a blue Housing truck”.
That is, I’m guessing, RCMP meant ‘Housing’ as in the organization, ‘Rankin Inlet Housing Association’, NOT a truck with a ‘housing’
Why date men with known histories of domestic abuse, in and out of jail, on and on… always go back to them?
The opening of the B&W store in Rankin Inlet has resulted in a significant surge in calls to the police detachment, potentially even tripling the typical volume. The RCMP has regularly communicated this information to the Hamlet council on a monthly basis. The statistical data unequivocally indicates that Rankin was ill-prepared for the impact of the B&W store, with the most vulnerable demographics being the elders and the children. It is essential to recognize that while abusive relationships are a contributing factor to murder, instances involving alcohol use have also been observed.
I wouldn’t mind taking a look at the data you’re citing.
On Saturday night, Rankin Inlet experienced another standoff in Area 6.
I heard someone got SWATTED.
It is a huge problem, the GNs thinking of opening a beer and wine store was to curb bootlegging, without any real research to back this up.
What has happened is it made it easier to get alcohol with the beer and wine store, more drinking and public intoxication, parties that run out of beer and wine contact a bootlegger to keep drinking throughout the night weekend and even weekday’s.
I don’t know how the people that decided to make the beer and wine store a priority over healing and treatment centre can look themselves in the mirror knowing what is needed in Nunavut.
They should be ashamed of themselves and stop being so selfish and look at the bigger picture.
The B&W stores were intended to break the pattern binge drinking that permeates Nunavut by changing the attitudes of future generations away from fetishizing alcohol, and towards making it what it is everywhere else: a product that is normal and that adults can buy in a store pretty much whenever they like. In the same way the rest of the country has done with cannabis. No one in their right mind thought that people who had grown up with the bootlegger culture would stop buying hard liquor from them. These stores were not just opened without “any real research”: they were opened after successful results of similar efforts in other areas of Inuit Nunangat such as Nunavik and Greenland.
I have to disagree there, it’s obvious the GN did not really do any hard research into this, the real thought here was to make it easier to buy beer and wine and majority of the people that want it just like in the south.
What these Beer and wine store does is to make it easier to drink alcohol, makes access to alcohol easier, this is not what we need here with all the social issues we have here. All it does create another younger generation of trauma.
Nunavik has a big problem too, it’s not working there, for Greenland they have cut hours of when they can buy alcohol and closed earlier and closed on Sundays, they have also opened more treatment centres and provided more counselling and programs in their communities.
Here our GN has done little to nothing and went ahead to make access to alcohol easier.
There are people in the GN that don’t care about all this as long as it makes it easier to buy alcohol. That is a huge problem and that needs to change within the GN and be more representative of Nunavut.
I opine that the introduction of beer and wine to Rankin Inlet should have been approached gradually. The initial step could have involved serving these beverages in restaurants, followed by the establishment of beer and wine store. This method might have presented a more tactful approach to their introduction.
Didn’t Siniktarvik serve alcohol in their restaurant prior to the B&W store?
Only to hotel guests I believe, it was never available to the public.
Blaming every single issue on the Beer & Wine store must make things so simple.
It’s almost enviable.
Yes blaming the B&W and the GN goes hand in hand in the north, its always someone else’s fault for all issues the locals have, never their fault. smh
Yes there’s always ignorant comments and deflections to what is going on in our territory, instead of learning about the issues pointing fingers and generalizations go hand and hand.
Always blaming locals for introduced problems never the fault of who introduced them in the first place.
Yes and ‘introduced problems’ is yet another one of those deflections away from the real underlying issue – personal accountability. On brand for Nunavut.