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Saskatchewan Justice in chaos: The Stonechild report suggests
it is | Larry
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of report
Larry Hartwig
Brad Senger
Notebook shows Hartwig
sent to Stonechild call
Betty Ann Adam, The StarPhoenix July 06, 2005
Former Saskatoon police constable
Larry Hartwig told his discipline appeal hearing Tuesday he was
surprised when he discovered in May 2000 that his notebook showed
he had been dispatched to a call involving Neil Stonechild the
night the teen was last seen alive.
Hartwig said he was shocked
because he had no memory of the call involving the teen, whose
1990 freezing death was attracting media coverage in 2000 amid
allegations of police wrongdoing.
But the lawyer for the Saskatoon
Police Service, Mitch Holash, said cross-examination of Hartwig
Tuesday revealed discrepancies in the former constable's testimony.
Hartwig and former constable
Brad Senger were fired in November after a commission of inquiry
found they had Stonechild in their custody the night he was last
seen alive. Commissioner Justice David Wright found that Stonechild
died from cold exposure -- his body was found in the north industrial
area five days after he went missing -- and that marks on his
body were likely made by handcuffs.
The pair was fired for failing
to disclose their contact with Stonechild. They deny they had
contact with him. Both say Stonechild was gone by the time they
arrived at an apartment where he had been causing a disturbance.
They are appealing their dismissals, and Hartwig has said he
wants his job back.
After reviewing the surprising
notebook entries from the night Stonechild was last seen alive,
Hartwig said Tuesday that in May 2000, he notified RCMP Insp.
Ken Lyons, who had already questioned him twice, to inform Lyons
the notebook contained mentions of Stonechild, Bruce Genaille
and Tracey Lee Horse.
Hartwig said he told Lyons
about the Horse entry because he had heard in the news that Horse
was the individual who claimed to have seen Stonechild in police
custody.
Newspaper articles entered
as evidence at the hearings do not mention the name Tracey Lee
Horse, which has since turned out to be an alias provided by
Stonechild's friend, Jason Roy.
Roy, who was wanted by police,
has said he gave Horse's name and birthdate to police because
he knew Horse was not in trouble with the law.
Hartwig said Tuesday nobody
else saw his notebook before he made photocopies for the RCMP.
He was aware the witness alleged
Stonechild was in the police cruiser with two officers. Hartwig
said he thought he was working alone that night and phoned other
police he had previously been partnered with to see if they remembered
working with him that night.
Later that day, Hartwig was
interrogated as a suspect in the Stonechild death. A videotape
of that interview was shown during the hearings two months ago.
In the video, Hartwig expressed astonishment when told that the
RCMP had evidence he had Stonechild in custody on the night in
question and that he had been partnered with Senger.
There are discrepancies in
Hartwig's testimony, said Holash, the police service lawyer.
"If one looks at the May
18, 2000, video, which is now becoming critical evidence, and
what he said upon being first advised that he had (run a database
check on) the eyewitness and another individual looking for Neil
Stonechild, his reaction on that videotape, it looks planned
and orchestrated, particularly when you find out some of the
other information as to how he prepared for the meeting,"
Holash said.
"You have some internal
discrepancies in the evidence he's given. That's never good when
one's assessing the credibility of a witness."
Hartwig also testified that
police officers discussed the Stonechild freezing death after
it happened and he remembered a colleague was dismayed with the
investigation findings that Stonechild was in the remote location
because he had gotten lost and died while trying to turn himself
in at the adult jail during a snowstorm.
Hartwig said he didn't tell
the investigator, then-sergeant Keith Jarvis, that he had been
dispatched to a call involving Stonechild five days before his
body was found because he didn't remember the dispatch at the
time.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
Hearings postponed for
Senger, Hartwig
The StarPhoenix, May
25, 2005
Discipline appeal hearings
for former Saskatoon police constables Bradley Senger and Larry
Hartwig have been postponed until June 21 and are scheduled through
June 24.
No location has been announced.
Hearings are also scheduled
for June 27-30 and July 5-8.
Hartwig and Senger were dismissed
from the Saskatoon Police Service in November for failing to
disclose their contact with aboriginal teenager Neil Stonechild
the night he was last seen alive in 1990.
A commission of inquiry found
in October 2004 that the pair had Stonechild in their custody,
that he died from cold exposure and that his body was found five
days later in Saskatoon's north industrial area, bearing marks
that were probably made by handcuffs.
Hartwig and Senger say they
did not have contact with Stonechild on the night in question,
Nov. 24, 1990.
The next witness scheduled
to testify at the appeal hearing is photogrammetry expert Gary
Roberts, who made measurements of marks on Stonechild's body
using autopsy photographs. He told the commission the measurements
showed handcuffs could have left the impressions on Stonechild's
nose and wrist.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
Pathologist doesn't
believe marks on Stonechild made by handcuffs
Betty Ann Adam, The
StarPhoenix, May 18, 2005
A forensic pathologist who
examined photographs of Neil Stonechild's body said the marks
on his nose and wrist were not made by handcuffs.
Dr. Emma Lew, deputy chief
medical examiner at Miami Dade County, who testified as an expert
witness, told the discipline appeal hearing of former constables
Larry Hartwig and Brad Senger that handcuffs are too smooth to
cause the "fine, linear scratches" that ran across
the nose of the aboriginal teenager.
Instead, they were probably
made by frozen vegetation Stonechild fell on when he collapsed,
she said.
Hartwig and Senger were fired
from the Saskatoon Police Service last November for failing to
disclose their contact with Stonechild the night he was last
seen alive in 1990. They are appealing their dismissal, saying
they never had contact with Stonechild that night.
Stonechild's friend, Jason
Roy, has said he was stopped and questioned by two police officers
who had Stonechild in the back seat of their cruiser, handcuffed,
bleeding and screaming for help.
Police computer records have
shown Hartwig and Senger checked the name Roy gave them on their
in-car computer around the time they were dispatched to a disturbance
involving Stonechild.
A commission of inquiry, headed
by Justice David Wright, found last year that the pair had Stonechild
in their custody, that he died from cold exposure and that his
body was found five days later, bearing marks that were probably
made by handcuffs.
Wright did not accept the opinion
of Lew, who also testified at the inquiry that she didn't think
the scratches on Stonechild's nose or the white impressions on
his wrists could have been made by handcuffs.
Hearing officer Dirk Silversides
will make his own findings on Roy's and Lew's evidence.
Lew said Tuesday that for the
cuffs to have broken the skin along those two lines, Stonechild
would have had to have been struck so hard it probably would
have broken his nose. She didn't see any sign of a broken nose.
Under cross-examination by
Hugh Harradence, who represents the police service, Lew acknowledged
she would have to agree with the pathologist who did an autopsy
on the body. That pathologist, Dr. Graeme Dowling, said he couldn't
rule out the possibility of some damage to the cartilage in Stonechild's
nose.
Photographs taken at the field
where Stonechild's frozen body was found give a more accurate
depiction of the fine nose abrasions than the photos taken during
the autopsy, by which time the body had thawed and the tissues
begun to decompose and dry, Lew said.
An autopsy photograph has previously
been used to demonstrate that the two abrasions appear to match
the two metal strips of a pair of handcuffs.
Enhanced photographs of the
white impressions on Stonechild's wrist reveal tiny marks that
Lew said were caused by the fabric of a cuff being pressed against
his skin as he laid face down with his arms bent and his hands
under his stomach.
She pointed out that the same
kinds of impressions were visible on his stomach and leg, and
that those impressions would have been caused by his clothing,
too.
As well, the wrist impressions
were too far down the hand toward the fingers to have been made
by handcuffs, which are clasped around the smaller part of the
wrist, she said.
Lew added there was nothing
about the body that precluded it from having worn handcuffs before
death.
The hearing will resume May
25, when photogrammetry expert Gary Roberts will testify about
photographic measurements he made from the Stonechild autopsy
pictures.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
Hartwig can't recall Stonechild
Videotaped interrogation played at hearing
Betty Ann Adam, The
StarPhoenix May 10, 2005
A videotape of Const. Larry
Hartwig being interrogated by RCMP in 2000 about his memory of
the night Neil Stonechild was last seen alive shows he was surprised
and perplexed by information indicating he and Const. Brad Senger
had the aboriginal teenager in their cruiser that night.
Hartwig said in the taped interview
he had no memory of contact with Stonechild that night.
The video was entered as evidence
Monday at the disciplinary appeal hearing of Hartwig and Senger,
who were fired in November after they were found unsuitable for
police service for failing to disclose their contact with Stonechild
on the night of Nov. 24, 1990.
A commission of inquiry found
last fall the constables had Stonechild in custody, that he died
from cold exposure and his frozen body was found five days later
bearing marks that were probably made by handcuffs.
Stonechild's friend, Jason
Roy, told the inquiry and the appeal hearing, that he saw Stonechild
in a police cruiser, handcuffed, bleeding from the face and yelling,
"They're gonna kill me."
Hartwig and Senger both deny
they had Stonechild in custody that night.
In the video Hartwig was seen
referring to his notebook, which had only sketchy entries related
to activities around the time he and Senger were dispatched to
a complaint about Stonechild causing a disturbance in a west-side
apartment building.
The notebook offered little
useful information except that it shows Hartwig wrote Stonechild's
name, then crossed it out and wrote the name of Bruce Genaille,
a man who has said he was stopped and questioned by police who
asked if he was Neil Stonechild.
Genaille has said the police
told him Stonechild had caused a disturbance at the nearby 7-Eleven
convenience store. Police computer records show Genaille's name
was searched from Hartwig and Senger's cruiser that night.
There was no one in the police
car when police questioned Genaille, he has said.
RCMP investigator Ken Lyons
also informed Hartwig during the interview that his car computer
had been used to check the name Tracey Lee Horse, the false name
Roy said he had given police when they stopped and questioned
him. It was during that stop that Roy said he saw Stonechild
in the police car.
During the taped interview,
Hartwig originally indicated he thought he worked alone that
night. He seemed relieved to hear that he had been working with
somebody and expressed hope that the other officer would remember
the incident or would have more complete notes.
Hartwig repeatedly said he
wanted to talk with Senger as soon as possible.
Hartwig said he had never abused
a prisoner and would remember if he had had a prisoner who yelled
that police were going to kill him, as witness Roy has said.
The hearing also heard Monday
from youth worker, Dianna Fraser, who said she knew Roy and Stonechild.
Fraser said Roy told her, within a month of Stonechild's funeral,
that he had seen Stonechild in the police car. Fraser said Roy
felt guilty because he hadn't done anything to help his friend
at the time.
The conversation happened in
the community, not while Fraser was on duty, and she didn't tell
anyone what Roy had said because he didn't ask for her help in
dealing with it, she said.
Under cross-examination by
lawyers for Hartwig and Senger, Fraser said she notified police
prior to Stonechild's funeral that his death had prompted rumours
in the community. She was concerned the rumours might fuel tension
among factions in the community and could lead to problems at
Stonechild's wake.
She hadn't yet heard Roy's
allegation at that time, she said.
The hearings have been adjourned
until next Monday. Hearings scheduled for the rest of this week
became unnecessary after both sides agreed to enter transcripts
of the evidence some witnesses gave at the inquiry instead of
having them come and repeat their statements.
They include Roy's former girlfriend,
Cheryl Antoine, coroner Dr. Brian Fern and two pathologists who
conducted autopsies, Dr. Jack Adolph and Dr. Graeme Dowling.
Dr. Emma Lew, a Florida medical
examiner will give evidence next week.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
Roy denies mocking Stonechild
event
Betty Ann Adam, The
StarPhoenix May 06, 2005
Jason Roy, who says he saw
Neil Stonechild in a police car the night he was last seen alive
in 1990, was accused Thursday of mockingly imitating the words
he has attributed to Stonechild.
The allegation came from Aaron
Fox, the lawyer for Larry Hartwig, who along with Brad Senger
is appealing his dismissal from the Saskatoon Police Service
for failing to disclose his contact with Stonechild that night.
"You banged on the window
and said, 'They're gonna kill me,' " Fox said, while holding
pages of police notes from an incident last fall.
"The incident you became
so emotional about (while testifying Wednesday), you were prepared
to mock and laugh about on Oct. 31, 2004," Fox said.
Roy vehemently denied the allegation.
The same police notes also
show that Roy made conciliatory remarks to the officers.
Hugh Harradence, who represents
the Saskatoon Police Service, read the police notes, which say
that Roy tried to get officers to talk about the Stonechild inquiry.
"He said we had to get
rid of the bad apples. I said we weren't even working here then.
He said he felt bad for us because we were all taking the rap
for it," Harradence read from the notes.
Hartwig and Senger were fired
last November, in the wake of the Oct. 25 report by Justice David
Wright, who headed a commission of inquiry into the 1990 freezing
death of Stonechild, an aboriginal teenager, and the resulting,
incomplete investigation.
Wright found constables Hartwig
and Senger had custody of Stonechild, that he died from cold
exposure and that his body was found five days later bearing
marks that were probably made by handcuffs.
During the inquiry, Roy testified
he had seen Stonechild in the back of a police car screaming,
"They're gonna kill me."
Hartwig and Senger deny they
had contact with Stonechild that night and are appealing their
firing under provisions of the provincial Police Act.
Roy's encounter with police
last fall resulted from his failure to pay a ticket for drinking
a beer in the park a year earlier, he told the hearing Thursday.
He had received the fine from Saskatoon police patrolling the
park on bicycles during the four-day period in 2003 when he was
testifying at the Stonechild inquiry, he said.
By last October, a warrant
had been issued because the ticket was unpaid.
Roy said it was interesting
that police knew who he was and that they knew he was at the
402 Club nightclub on Oct. 31 and were waiting for him when he
came out. They had him sit in the back seat of the cruiser while
they filled out a form for him to sign, and then let him go.
Roy acknowledged Thursday that
his memory of details surrounding the pivotal 1990 occurrence
has changed over time.
Under intense cross-examination
by Fox, Roy acknowledged he has backed away from the detailed
descriptions he has given about a cut on Stonechild's face and
about the driver of the police car.
Roy previously said a man who
stared at him on a city bus in the early years after Stonechild's
death was the officer who had driven the car Stonechild was in.
Years later he said he saw the same officer at a function at
the While Buffalo Youth Lodge. Roy had described the man as being
much taller than his own 5-foot-9 height, having a mustache and
wearing thick lens glasses.
Hartwig and Senger are 5-foot-7
and 5-foot-9, and neither wears glasses, Fox observed.
Roy said he must have assumed
the man on the bus was the driver of the police car because he
had stared at Roy and intimidated him.
Roy insisted those things don't
change the fact he saw Stonechild in the police car.
"It goes to the intimidation
I've been under for the past 15 years," he said.
"I know what I saw. .
. . The core issue was me seeing my friend in the back seat of
that car," he said.
Hearing officer Dirk Silversides
was given several documents from the Stonechild inquiry, which
will become evidence he will consider along with the testimony
of witnesses who come before him.
The documents include transcripts
of the testimony of two memory experts, Dr. John Yuille and Dr.
William Arnold, who explained how memories are formed and how
they can be influenced over time by subsequent experience.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
