Episode 42 is a special interview about the case of Winnipeg resident Dan Rentz, the tragedy of his passing in November 2022, and if the City 911 service failed to send help because of a systemic bias.
Part 1- Sheena Paterson is the mother of Lily Rentz, who is the daughter of Dan Rentz. The parents were a pair for 27 years, and the family struggled with Dan’s mental health and addiction issues. He had called 911 in the past. Sheena believes with males more prone to committing suicide, “there’s a real discrepancy as to how they deal with 911 calls” between male and female callers.
8.00- You’ll hear what a Police Detective told Sheena about the panicked 911 call and what Dan said- and that’s led the family to wonder why a wellness check wasn’t dispatched.
* When CTV asked, the City made a bold claim:
“It has been determined that proper procedure was followed within the policy of the communication centre. While this incident was tragic, no information was provided during the interaction with the call taker to indicate an emergency requiring a response from our units.“
Without hearing the audio, there is no way to evaluate if the City is telling the truth, or if it is covering up. CTV declined to follow up.
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10.00 – City Holds Back 911 Audio From Suicide Victim’s Family
“Not only have we been refused for the FIPPA requests, we’ve been refused on different reasons every single time.”
One of those reasons was “Disclosure harmful to a third party’s privacy”,
Lily has pushed back, writing: “In my dads case, how is a third party impacted by my dads call? He didn’t have any people around close to him when he ended his life; who is the third party? How much training in suicide prevention do the 911 operators have?”
Hear Sheena explain “he was by himself when he called 911 and he was by himself when he died… so who are they trying to protect?”
While the family still fights for access to the tape, Lily is pleading for some common sense:
“My dad was in serious mental distress and called 911 for help. I am not looking to lay blame on anyone for his actions but I am trying to understand what he communicated to the 911 operator and why he did not meet the criteria to warrant a health check by WPS.”
One of the reasons? PACT program wellness checks In Winnipeg were only available until 9:30 pm on a Saturday night. We hope no one ever gets suicidal after midnight.
18:52 Part 2 – “My daughter deserves the truth.”
21.10- Sheena describes the doors that aren’t open towards helping that cause- including the Medical Examiner’s Office, Legal Help Centre, or- Wab Kinew.
Sheena describes the end result of 4 conversations with his office- ‘she pretended she never even received the email and then later accidentally quoted my email. Then she called (Coun.) Sherri Rollin’s office- no help.”
23.20 – “If it was a white woman in St. Vital that car would be there in an instant.”
We discuss if there’s an unconscious bias towards males or core-area addresses – people like Dan Rentz who lived on Logan – when they call 911 for help.
The Lentz tragedy was made worse when Dan’s house “was immediately looted”. Police were more concerned about Sheena trying to protect the home from repeated break-ins than with the thieves.
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25.48 – “Dan had written notes that he left belongings for Lily… the clothes out of the dryer, food out of the fridge… people running out of the house with bags of stuff”
Vagrants started fires inside the house, the pipes burst, then the City demolished it.
“Never did we get access to that house to take belongings. All of my daughter’s memories with her dad, gone.”
29.00 – This boils down to how an emergency call was handled. Who takes a complaint about 911?
Marty called the 311 service to ask- and got a surprising answer, as Sheena had never once been guided towards that venue.
To support the Truth for Lily, Justice For Dan $25/ticket fundraiser draw: [email protected]
