‘Beautiful mother’ mourned by family, friends

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/07/2020 (1539 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the last year of her life, Danielle Dawn Cote was dealing with so much pain.

Family and friends of the 27-year-old woman shared in that pain Friday evening during a vigil held near the spot where Cote was shot and killed at 3:15 a.m. July 1 as she walked on Flora Avenue.

Cote was a mother of four, and her children are now left confused and afraid, Cote’s mother, Julie Black, told more than 40 people who gathered in memory of the young woman.

Many of them held a long-stemmed red rose and a thin white candle while drummers sang prayer songs to guide Cote’s spirit.

She was a “beautiful mother” and a kind person, Black said, but she left her children and her husband while grieving the death of her father during the past 12 months.

“My daughter wasn’t a street girl. She was lost in her heart, she lost her father, and she left her four children and her husband because the pain was just too bad for her. Danielle didn’t want to live through that.”

“She suffered a lot in the past 12 months.”

A 14-year-old male has been charged in the shooting death of Cote, as well as three other shootings that happened July 1 and 2 in Winnipeg. The man Cote had been walking with, whom Black said was Cote’s cousin, was also shot and was taken to hospital. When she found out a 14-year-old had been charged in her daughter’s death, Black said “it totally flipped my script.”

“How can you be angry at a child?” she said, speaking to reporters as the crowd of vigil attendees dissipated.

“I want to say to the family of the young male: I forgive him… and I will pray for him, too.”

During the vigil, which members of the Bear Clan Patrol and Mama Bear Clan attended, community advocate Jenna Wirch, co-founder of Meet Me at the Bell Tower, urged everyone to take a stand against violence.

“We need to come together as a community, all of us, and look after one another,” Wirch said.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @thatkatiemay