Vigil held for teen slain in downtown Winnipeg

About two dozen people gathered in the bitter cold on Monday evening to hold a vigil for a 14-year-old girl slain in downtown Winnipeg late last week.

The girl was stabbed on Graham Avenue on Friday and later died of her injuries. The Winnipeg Police Service is looking for three people in connection with her death.

Supt. Bonnie Emerson, who's in charge of community engagement for the police service, took part in the vigil for the teen, whom police have not named.

"This was a little girl," Emerson said to a circle of vigil participants gathered around a fire outside Ma Mawi Wi Ichita Centre in the North End.

"I wanted to share the police officers who arrived on scene were with her within moments, they went into the ambulance with her and they went into the hospital with her and she was never alone.

"I know that really affected the police officers and I wanted you all to know that homicide [the police's homicide unit] has been working around over the weekend and that this is really important."

Heidi Spence, the MMIWG liaison unit director at Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, told people at the gathering to hold each other up.

"Hopefully we don't have to meet like this because it doesn't get easier. We should be meeting for good things," she said.

Winnipeg police Chief Danny Smyth said earlier Monday that investigators are looking for a male they called a suspect and two girls who were with the slain teen around the time she was attacked.

Smyth said investigators do not consider the attack random because the teen appeared to know the other three people.

The teen had been reported missing on a number of occasions in the past, said Smyth, adding that police have helped find her and return her home.

She had not been reported missing at the time of the attack, Smyth said.