Suspect in The Forks attack, who remains at large, has violent past

The 33-year-old implicated in two random, violent attacks — including one in which a man was knocked unconscious at The Forks — took part in a 2011 fatal jailhouse gang beating that shattered the victim’s ribs so badly he “drowned in his own blood.”

Winnipeg police detectives identified Daniel Christopher Dumas as the suspect wanted in the random assault of a 30-year-old man in an outdoor sitting area at The Forks late on June 6, as well as another random assault and a break-in hours later.

He remained unlawfully at large Monday after breaching conditions imposed upon his release from federal prison in January and now wanted on a warrant for the Winnipeg attacks.

“The consistent level of violence you have engaged in over a considerable amount of time, without any significant level of remorse or empathy, is very concerning for the board,” said Parole Board of Canada member Mark Chatterbok, in a December report on Dumas, ahead of his mandated release from prison.

The victim at The Forks was beaten until he was unconscious and the suspect made off with the victim’s belongings, which he later threw at a woman as she walked her dog around Assiniboine Avenue and Gary Street, police have said.

Last week, detectives linked Dumas to another random assault at a beer vendor in West Broadway, which occurred about an hour after the attack at The Forks. A 37-year-old woman waiting in line was attacked at random and the suspect made off with her purse just after midnight June 7.

Dumas is also the suspect in the break-in garage in River Heights shortly after the beer vendor incident. Police believe the suspect, who rummaged through a vehicle in the garage, tried to break in to the house, but was unsuccessful.

Dumas was let out of prison on statutory release on Jan. 2, under conditions imposed by the parole board.

He was given 11 years of federal prison time in 2013, when he pleaded guilty to taking part in the 2011 manslaughter of 21-year-old Tyler St. Paul in the Milner Ridge jail, northeast of Winnipeg. While in prison, he committed other crimes that extended his sentence to 12 years and eight months, parole records suggest.

St. Paul and his seven attackers, including Dumas, were members of the Most Organized Brothers street gang. They were housed together in a gang range at the provincial jail, but when St. Paul wanted to leave the MOB and join another gang, the MOB leader ordered fellow gangsters to beat him.

The brutal, 10-minute thrashing went too far. St. Paul died when shards of his broken ribs pierced his lungs on May 16, 2011, Crown prosecutor Keith Eyrikson told court in 2013.

“Effectively, he drowned in his own blood,” Eyrikson, who is now a provincial court judge, said at the 2013 sentencing hearing for Dumas and several other of the attackers.

The parole board’s December release report details Dumas’s criminal acts while in prison. He was transferred to prisons across the country as a result, the report said.

Dumas pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm for participating in a group beating on an inmate in 2015.

He lit his prison cell on fire in January 2019 and corrections officers had to use pepper spray to get him to comply after they broke in.

In March 2019, he hit another inmate with the wooden handle of a squeegee he was using to clean up water.

When corrections officers went into his cell in July 2020 to strip search him for weapons, Dumas got agitated and hit one of the officers in face, causing a concussion and a chipped tooth. Officers later found a six-inch-long prison shank.

In September 2024, he was convicted of assault with a weapon and given a sentence concurrent to the one he was already serving.

His release conditions require him to return to his federal halfway house — it’s unclear based on the records whether it’s in Winnipeg or elsewhere — every night.

He was also to follow a treatment plan for his impulsivity and violence, have no contact with criminals or gangsters, abstain from drugs and alcohol and have no contact with the family members of his victim.

Dumas didn’t behave the last time he was let out on statutory release, in December 2021.

He was in the community for a short time before going unlawfully at large for about a month and racking up charges for violent crimes, the parole board said.

Dumas was locked up in federal prison again, where much of his problematic behaviour continued, though he reportedly stop being affiliated with a prison gang, the parole board said.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca