Sex assaults spark calls for Red River trail lighting

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This article was published 09/08/2021 (1234 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A section of the Red River trail system that’s been the site of a recent spate of sex assaults can be described as a “hunting ground for women,” says one area resident.

Mel Marginet regularly uses the west bank trail from South Osborne near Jubilee Avenue to Osborne Village as a runner and to commute downtown as a cyclist.

“There needs to be lights on that trail, 100 per cent. I can’t believe there isn’t any,” she told the Free Press Tuesday. “(It) is incredibly isolated, it is widely used and it’s dark.”

On Monday, the Winnipeg Police Service said a teenage girl was walking along the river trail behind Churchill High School around 3:45 a.m. Sunday, when a man grabbed and sexually assaulted her. The teen was able to free herself and ran for help.

Later that same day, a woman in her 20s was jogging along the river trail near Harkness Avenue at around 6 p.m., when a man came up from the riverbank and assaulted her. The woman screamed for help and escaped.

Investigators have identified about five similar assaults at various points on the trail system since April, targeting victims from their mid-teens to late 30s, “but there may be more,” WPS spokesman Const. Rob Carver said.

All the incidents occurred between the Osborne Bridge, south along Churchill Drive, to the Elm Park footbridge at Jubilee Avenue, police said. WPS had not definitively linked the assaults, however.

Marginet, who recently moved to South Osborne and works in theatre, at a local publishing house and Green Action Centre, plans to use the trails as her main commuter route.

“I’m using it more in the early morning and at night, it’s completely pitch black. It is dark, dark. I bought myself a new brighter light for my bike, but it would be like driving… and the city had no street lights and you just depended on car’s headlights to do the job.”

She also criticized police for advising women to avoid poorly-lit places.

“As a woman, can I not go for a run by myself without being in danger? Why can’t the city… offer basic infrastructure for security, which is lighting?”

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Bathie regularly walks her dog on the trail and the recent string of sex assaults has her concerned, too.

“It’s definitely a little uncomfortable,” said Bathie, 33, who works at the Urban Canine dog daycare on Mulvey Avenue near the northern entrance to the Red River trail system.

“Definitely a safety concern, it would be nice to have some safety patrols maybe wandering the area,” she said, adding her support for increased lighting.

Near Churchill school Tuesday, 69-year-old Val Klassen was towing her 18-month-old granddaughter in a wagon on Churchill Drive, after a visit to a nearby park.

“I walk (on the trail) during the day — maybe right now I don’t,” Klassen said of the police announcement this week. “I don’t want it to happen anywhere, but I don’t want anyone I know to be at risk, of course.”

Members of her family have said the trails have become more unsafe in recent years, Klassen added.

“Really, it enrages me,” Coun. Sherri Rollins said of the reported sex crimes in her ward.

Rollins said Tuesday she and other councillors are working with the city planning department and Winnipeg Transit to incorporate gender-based planning to design processes, as well as better gender representation on civic boards and council.

The Fort Rouge councillor was quick to point to the societal root causes of sexual assault, when asked about potential responses to safety concerns such as lighting along the Red River trail system. Rollins noted she has worked on addressing poor lighting in public spaces in her ward since she was elected in 2018.

That doesn’t quite wash for Marginet.

“There needs to be generational change… but the reality is, tomorrow I have to go to work and so I cannot wait for this systematic shift in society,” she said.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca