This was a horrific sexual assault, one that very nearly caused the death of the young woman who was left unconscious and almost fully unclothed on a minus 27-degree morning in March.

It is the type of case from which a victim may never fully recover, made worse by the fact that after two years, she has not received justice. The violent nature of the assault, the fact that the victim lost consciousness, and that the suspect was wearing bulky winter clothes and a face mask, meant that we had very little to work with - only that the suspect was Black and about 5'4 with a black toque, pants, and sweater or hoodie and that he had an accent. In addition, we had no witnesses, no tips, no CCTV and, after two years, no leads.

And:

While the tension I felt over this was very real, I prioritized the investigation – which in this case involved the pursuit of justice for the victim, herself a member of a racialized community, over the potential harm to the Black community. This was not an acceptable trade-off and I apologize for this.

For this reason, EPS will be taking the following steps today.

We are going to remove the visuals provided with this release from our web site and will remove our social media images altogether, effective this morning.

The Edmonton Police is a rapist's best friend.