WINNIPEG -- Two police officers who saw a 15-year-old girl shortly before she disappeared and was killed may face charges following an internal investigation.
Winnipeg police Chief Devon Clunis said Friday he has received a report into the officers' actions on the day before Tina Fontaine vanished and it will be forwarded to a Crown attorney.
"That file was handed to me just this week and probably within a short period of time, the file itself will be forwarded to the Crown for an opinion," Clunis said.
He refused to elaborate on what kind of charges or other penalties the Crown might consider.
"I think it's better to have an objective view rather than myself trying to affect the outcome in any way, shape or form."
"In a case like this, if we did not move that forward to have an outside look at it ... we'd be scrutinized for not doing that, so we're taking every step to ensure there is open transparency related to any decision."
Police have already confirmed that two officers, who have not been identified, came across Fontaine when they pulled over a vehicle on Aug. 8.
Fontaine was in the care of Child and Family Services and had run away. She had been reported missing more than a week earlier, but was not taken into custody at the traffic stop -- an apparent contravention of police protocol for handling missing minors.
It's not clear whether the officers knew Fontaine's identity at the time or whether they were made aware she had been reported missing via the police database.
The officers were among the last people to see Fontaine alive. Her body was found in a bag in the Red River nine days later. No arrests have been made.
The case has renewed calls for a national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women.
The head of the Winnipeg police officers union, Moe Sabourin, was not available for comment Friday. He previously urged people to await the results of the internal probe and not jump to conclusions about what happened at the traffic stop.
Fontaine had spent much of her life with her great-aunt, Thelma Favel, on the Sagkeeng First Nation, 75 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg. The girl had a history of running away and went to Winnipeg about a month before her death to visit her biological mother.
Relatives say Tina was a good student who drifted into trouble after her father, Eugene, was beaten to death in October 2011. At a court hearing earlier this week for two men who have pleaded guilty to manslaughter in Eugene Fontaine's death, relatives recalled Tina leaving Sagkeeng for Winnipeg and ending up on the streets.
Favel has said social workers told her that on the night of Aug. 8 -- a few hours after police came across Fontaine -- the girl was found passed out in an alley downtown and paramedics took her to a nearby hospital.
Social workers picked her up from the hospital, but she ran away again -- for the final time, Favel said.
Child and Family Services has launched an internal investigation into the case as well. The Manitoba government and the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority have not confirmed or denied Favel's statements, citing privacy laws and the police investigation.
