Family urges Canadians not to forget what assaulted girl endured Breaking down in tears with a loved one's hand on his shoulder, Rinelle Harper's father recalled the first time he saw his daughter in the hospital, battered and bruised after a gruesome attack that nearly killed her. Caesar Harper will never forget that moment. And the girl's family is asking that Canadians, aboriginal or otherwise, never forget what Rinelle has gone through: a public fight for her life that elders hope will prove a pivotal moment in tackling violence against this country's native women and girls. Speaking publicly for the first time since the weekend attack, Mr. Harper and his wife, Julie Harper, thanked the community and the Winnipeg Police Service for their efforts, which led to the swift arrest this week of two men. "Rinelle is getting better each day," Ms. Harper said of her daughter, who has been transferred from the intensive-care unit to the children's ward. She's a big role model. She's a fighter. She's a hero to everybody. Just past midnight Saturday, the 16-year-old was beaten by two men under a bridge near the Assiniboine River and somehow ended up in the frigid waters. Wet, battered and barely clothed, Rinelle managed to crawl out of the river only to be attacked again by the same men. Then, in another dark twist, police say the co-accused left the aboriginal girl for dead before allegedly going on to sexually assault a second woman, aged 23. The emotional press conference in the Manitoba capital, featuring chiefs and elders from across the province, was held in the name of Rinelle Harper, but it spoke to the plight of countless others. It was about this country's more than 1,180 murdered and missing native girls and women. It was about the parents and grandparents who are scared to send their children away from the reserve and into the city for the sake of a better education. It was about Rinelle's cousin, who got off the plane in Winnipeg and asked, "I wonder if somebody will grab me." "We have to turn this around," said Grand Chief David Harper, a relative who represents about 30 northern first nations. "A few years ago, Rinelle's uncle [the late Manitoba politician Elijah Harper] stood before the legislature and said, "No." This is the same thing Rinelle did in the frigid waters. She was attacked, beaten, left for dead. ... She got back up from the waters and she said, "No. This is not going to happen any more." " Like others her age, Rinelle has dreams. She wants to join the Canadian Forces. She had moved from Garden Hill First Nation to Winnipeg a couple of years ago to attend Southeast Collegiate, a high-school for aboriginal children that offers more course selection than the school on her reserve. She had been living in the school dorm, but was released Friday after a week of midterms into the care of her parents, who had just recently moved to the city so that her mother could take some college courses. Rinelle, who is expected to recover from the ordeal, is eager to get back to school, even telling her mother that she wants to return to her classroom next week. The city was supposed to bring opportunity, not violence and heartbreak. And that is precisely the fate aboriginal parents and grandparents fear when they send their children from a small, remote community to the city. "The statistics on violence against women and children is always on their mind," said Fred Harper, Rinelle's grandfather and Elijah Harper's brother. But we have to get our young people educated. Winnipeg police announced Wednesday that two men are now in custody in connection to both crimes - a pair of arrests that came thanks, in large part, they say, to the rare decision to identify Rinelle and humanize her case. Her parents say they gave police permission to release their daughter's name in the hopes that doing so would compel witnesses to come forward. Justin James Hudson, a 20-year-old member of Poplar River First Nation who was born and raised in Winnipeg, and a 17-year-old male, who cannot be named because he is a minor, have been charged with attempted murder, aggravated sexual assault and sexual assault with a weapon. Asked about the fact that at least one aboriginal man has been arrested in connection with the crimes, Fred Harper said violence among the same race isn't surprising - white people commit crimes against white people, he offered. And then added: "But it's among us. It's the way we are these days. Grand Chief Harper said part of the problem lies in the instability experienced by so many aboriginal children and youth. They bounce from one foster home to the next, sometimes landing in hotels when the province has nowhere else to put them. "I have a responsibility to connect with my son, with my children," he said. The weekend assault on Rinelle rocked the city in part because of its resemblance to the high-profile case of Tina Fontaine, the teen whose August killing prompted renewed calls for a national inquiry into this country's murdered and missing aboriginal women. The two cases are similar enough - violence directed at native girls left for dead in or near the city's rivers - that police said they will probe whether there are links. Grand Chief Harper called on Winnipeg's first aboriginal mayor as well as other levels of government to sit down with native leaders to hammer out a plan to stop the violence against indigenous women and girls. He said a federal inquiry, which the Conservative government has rejected, is part of the way forward, but he added: "At the same time, we have to go right down to the root."