Oh here we go again. Another thread about the First Nation people. I see liquor has already been introduced into the discussion by one idiot.
We
Sons and Daughters of the First Nation are not perfect by any streach of the imagination. We trusted the white man when he arrived and having been paying for that one ever since.
We have our version of
Homeland Security and we have been
fighting terrorism since 1492.
In any event here is a true story of the treatment of First Nation by police.
The link to the story below.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3540725/
Left for Dead in a Saskatchewan Winter
A survivor’s story exposes police abuse of indigenous Canadians
Darrell Night, 37, who was dropped off by police at the edge of town in Saskatoon to freeze.
Sat., Nov . 22, 2003
SASKATOON, Saskatchewan, Nov. 22 - Two white policemen picked up Darrell Night outside his uncle’s apartment one January before dawn. There had been a quarrel, and Night, who had been drinking, was shouting obscenities. NIGHT, a member of the Cree Nation, recalls thinking the cops were going to throw him in the drunk tank, but they drove straight out of town. They took him to an isolated spot three miles outside Saskatoon.
“Get the [expletive] out of here, you [expletive] Indian,” he recalled one officer saying, and they slammed his face on the hood of the trunk, took off his handcuffs and left him standing alone on a riverbank.
“I’ll freeze out here,” he yelled. “What’s wrong with you guys?”
A voice echoed in the cold: “That’s your [expletive] problem.”
Night watched the car drive off, its lights trailing out of sight. The wind was whipping on the night of Jan. 28, 2000, in Saskatchewan, where there can be sudden blizzards and temperatures may drop to 40 degrees below zero. He was wearing a T-shirt, jeans, a jeans jacket and running shoes.
“I thought I was dead, but something told me, don’t give up,” he recalled. So Night started walking.
Night said he would have been “one more dead Indian,” a victim of what had become known as the “midnight blue tour,” a body found on the outskirts of Saskatoon, with no witnesses and only a dead man’s story to tell. But he managed to walk several miles to the Queen Elizabeth power station, where a watchman let him in from the cold.
Night’s account of his survival transfixed Saskatoon and opened a window on what some have called the dark side of the city’s police force, which may have imposed its own death penalty on the wind-whipped prairie. Over the years, at least five frozen bodies of aboriginal men have been found in the same area. There were always rumors the police had dropped them off, but there was nothing to prove it until Night made it back alive.
CALL FOR INQUIRY
Over dozens of years, native Canadians had complained of mistreatment by some police officers.
Many people were outraged, and Night began receiving death threats. Since then, hundreds of other aboriginal people from across Canada have called the Native Law Centre the University of Saskatchewan to tell their own stories of abuse.
“It’s a very old practice to get rid of the Indian who was inebriated or mad,” said Sakej Henderson, the director of the Native Law Centre. “If it wasn’t for Darrell Night, we would still be muddling around. We knew the people died suspiciously, but we could never get enough connecting evidence to say why they died. But with Darrell Night, all of a sudden the pattern was there. We could see it clear. Clear enough the province has said we need an inquiry.”
In Night’s case, constables Dan Hatchen and Ken Munson of the Saskatoon Police Service were convicted of unlawful confinement in September 2001 and sentenced to eight months in prison. The maximum sentence for an unlawful confinement conviction was 10 years. They are now free.
Over dozens of years, native Canadians had complained of mistreatment by some police officers. About 75 percent of the male prison population and 90 percent of the female prison population is aboriginal, according to government statistics. Government commissions were set up to address these concerns. Henderson said aboriginal advocacy groups began pressing for changes, calling for community relations programs aimed at reducing the number of arrests. The Native Law Centre also made an effort to educate aboriginals on the law and encourage them to become lawyers or to work to defend civil rights. Henderson said he believed that as a result of these changes, certain police officers decided to deal with “problem Indians” by their own methods.
“When we started correcting the problem by creating advocates for aboriginal people,” Henderson said, “the police started taking things into their own hands, feeling they could just drop them off and not book them.”
‘PATTERNS OF POLICE ABUSE’
In 2001, the international human rights organization Amnesty International issued a report criticizing Canadian police for “patterns of police abuse against First Nation (Aboriginal) men in Saskatoon.” First Nation is the way the aboriginal people identify themselves.
The case has now triggered questions about others who had been found frozen to death on the edge of town.
“There were reports that members of Saskatoon City Police had for a number of years had an unofficial policy of abandoning intoxicated or ‘troublesome’ members of the indigenous community away from the population centre of Saskatoon, thereby placing them at great risk of dying of hypothermia during the winter months,” Amnesty International said.
During the trial of Hatchen and Munson, the officers testified that they didn’t break any laws and that Night was never assaulted. But individually, they gave different accounts of what happened that night.
William Roe, Hatchen’s attorney, said the officers’ defense during the trial was that Night asked to be dropped off on the edge of town. “He was in the back of the police car,” Roe said. “He was well-known to the police who had dealt with him before. His line was, ‘Look boys, drop me off anywhere. Just don’t take me in and charge me.’ That was their defense in a nutshell.”
Why near the power plant? “My client’s explanation was they decided to drop him off but he would have to walk a ways. That particular area just happened to be where they were at the time.”
Morris Bodnar, Munson’s attorney, denied the drop-off was motivated by racism. “There have been other individuals around Saskatchewan who said they have been dropped off by different police forces,” he said. “Some are aboriginal. Some are not aboriginal. I have my doubts that race was a factor.”
Prosecutor Bill Burge argued, “They deviated from what the criminal code tells them what to do and did what they wanted to do. At that point, the confinement of Darrell Night became unlawful because they’re not taking him to the police station.”
The Saskatoon Police Service fired the officers after their convictions. Saskatchewan’s justice minister, Chris Axworthy, ordered a review into the treatment of native Canadians in the justice system.
Police Chief Russell Sabo apologized to the aboriginal justice reform commission in June, saying the two officers “failed to live up to their oath of office.” Sabo said the department was shocked and distressed by the facts in the case. “I can assure you our department and the community of Saskatoon have paid a heavy penalty,” he said.
Sabo said in a recent televised interview that the abandonment of aboriginal men by Saskatoon police “happened more than once, and we fully admit that and, in fact, on behalf of the police department, I want to apologize. It’s quite conceivable there were other times. I think it’s important we take ownership when we do something wrong and correct the behavior.”
The case has now triggered questions about others who had been found frozen to death on the edge of town.
One day after Night’s ordeal, the body of Rodney Naistus was found shirtless in the same area on the edge of Saskatoon.
On Feb. 3, 2000, the body of Lawrence Kim Wegner was found near where Night had been dropped off. Wegner, who was found wearing a T-shirt, socks and jeans, was last seen alive early on the morning Jan. 31. Both Wegner and Naistus appeared to have frozen to death. By some accounts, they died within hours of being released from police custody, according to police investigations and public inquests.
(End of part one)
