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Winnipeg’s top cop says he’s going to meet with the head of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority after one of its outreach workers was mistakenly detained during a homicide investigation last week.<\/p>\n
Ray Samakese was near his workplace at the WRHA building in downtown Winnipeg on June 18 when police detained him in connection to a fatal stabbing that happened nearby a few hours earlier.<\/p>\n
He said officers told him he was being detained because he matched the suspect’s description.<\/p>\n
“Where did they get their initial information from to begin with? [Was it] because I was a big Native fellow walking across the street that I matched the description?” Samakese previously told CBC News.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Winnipeg police Chief Gene Bowers said he will meet with Jane Curtis, interim CEO of the WRHA, in the coming days to discuss what happened.<\/p>\n
“We have to recognize that this was a very dynamic call \u2014 someone lost their life,” Bowers told reporters at an unrelated news conference.<\/p>\n
“There [were] lots of things going on, so I look forward to the opportunity to speak with them to discuss what transpired and see where we can come together on this one.”<\/p>\n
Bowers did not say whether he will meet with Samakese, or if the police service will apologize to him.<\/p>\n
“I’ve been asked to speak with the CEO, and again, I’ll see where those discussions go,” he said.<\/p>\n
Samakese called Bowers’ response “vague and insincere.”<\/p>\n
He wanted to hear “more accountability and acknowledgement” from Bowers, “not [for] just myself, but for the disrespect shown to my team as well,\u201d he said in a text message to CBC News on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
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Ray Samakese, centre, believes he was racially profiled after police detained him following a fatal stabbing near the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority building last week. (Trevor Brine\/CBC)<\/p>\n
Samakese was released by police after his co-workers “made it clear they had been together all day” and that he was not involved in the stabbing, Curtis said in a statement Monday.<\/p>\n