As the search for two suspects wanted in connection to three murders in British Columbia expanded, a group of volunteer activists managed the first reported sighting of the teenagers in several days.

The Bear Clan Patrol is a group of volunteers in Winnipeg offering “personal security in the inner city in a non-threatening, non-violent and supportive way.” The organization began in 1992, but following a hiatus was reestablished in 2015 as part of a movement to make the streets safer for Indigenous people after the murder of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine.

The group has since grown to more than 1,500 volunteers, with groups in 35 other Canadian communities adopting a similar model. 

Earlier this week, members of the Bear Clan travelled to communities in remote stretches of northern Manitoba for the first time to help with the search for Bryer Schmegelsky and Kam McLeod, who are wanted in connection to three murders in northern British Columbia.

On July 26, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs announced the Bear Clan would be heading north as a way of helping communities in the area with little experience dealing with an enhanced RCMP presence.

“The patrol groups will provide a sense of security to our First Nations communities that are now facing a great deal of uncertainty,” said Acting Grand Chief Sheldon Kent in a news release.

On Sunday evening, members of the Bear Clan Patrol reported the first sighting of Schmegelsky and McLeod in nearly a week at a landfill in York Landing, Man., about 90 kilometres southwest of where an SUV connected to the suspects had been found near Gillam, Man.

Bear Clan Executive Director James Favel told CTV News Channel on Sunday that three members dispatched to York Landing noticed two men matching the suspects’ descriptions at the community landfill.

Favel said that when the two men “saw that they were spotted, they bolted across the road … and then through a treeline and disappeared.”

The RCMP sent officers to investigate what they called a “credible” tip, but failed to make contact with the suspects and couldn’t confirm the sighting.  Officers will continue to search both York Landing and Gillam.

Favel said the volunteers were supposed to be flying out of the community later that day, but will remain there until the search is complete.