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Newly posted 2005: Jeremy
Morse: Criminal cop wins lawsuit | Donovan
Jackson | Stanley
Miller and Devin Brown | John
Melenchuk | George Bird | Darrell Night | Hatchen
and Munson | Melvin Bigsky
| Lawrence Wegner | Rodney Naistus | Neil
Stonechild | Keldon McMillan
| index to police
stories | Everardo Torres | 2005: From
Saskatoon to LA, people are resisting police abuse
Frank Joseph
Paul
Coon Come hails probe
of native freezing death
CTV.ca News Staff , Jun.
25 2003
The national chief of the Assembly
of First Nations says a review by the B.C. police complaints
commissioner into the 1998 case of a drunk aboriginal man who
was dragged out of a Vancouver police station only to die hours
later sends a powerful signal.
"I think what we need
is signals, like the offices of the B.C. Police Complaints Commissioner
... independent public inquiries that can send a message to the
victims and to the families that we're going to reexamine if
we feel that there's negligence here," Matthew Coon Come
told CTV's Canada AM on Wednesday.
New Brunswick Mi'kmaq Frank
Joseph Paul died early the morning of December 6, 1998 from hypothermia
after being released from police custody into near-freezing temperatures.
Two police officers received
minor suspensions, of two days each over the incident, but no
public hearing or inquiry was held.
On Tuesday B.C. police complaints
commissioner Dirk Ryneveld reopened the file and released a copy
of a police videotape. The tape depicts a key incident from Paul's
last day, when he was taken twice to the Vancouver drunk tank.
Police had said that when they
released Paul, he was able to take care of himself.
The police surveillance video
appears to contradict that statement, showing a man who appears
to be drunk and passed out. The wet trail his body leaves while
being dragged confirms he was soaking wet.
He was left in an alley on
that cold winter night, and died a few hours later from exposure.
"The videotape speaks
for itself," Ryneveld said. "I won't comment on it.
Those who see it can form their own opinion."
Not an isolated
incident
Speaking on Canada AM, Coon
Come said Paul's family and the native community as a whole deserves
some answers for that and other similar incidents.
"I would like to say that
it's an isolated incident, but it's not," he said. "We've
also had stories of the young people that were dropped off by
the police in Saskatoon, we saw an incident in Alberta -- the
shooting of a mother and the young child that witnessed it --
and a Manitoba inquiry told the story of the unequal treatment
of aboriginal peoples when it comes to the police."
Meanwhile, the Federation of
Saskatchewan Indian Nations is investigating allegations by a
native man that he was assaulted by two police officers during
his arrest.
George Bird, 30, says he was
punched, kicked, stepped on and had his shoulder dislocated by
one or two police officers who arrested him following a disturbance
complaint.
He also complained of nerve
damage to a hand from being handcuffed too tightly.
Bird, who is serving a six-month
jail term for assault was charged with resisting arrest, an allegation
he denies.
Bird's complaint is the latest
of several over the treatment of aboriginals by Saskatchewan
police officers.
In February, Saskatchewan Justice
Minister Eric Cline called a judicial inquiry into the 1990 freezing
death of 17-year-old Neil Stonechild, who was last seen alive
in police custody. He was later found in a field, dead of hypothermia
and wearing just one shoe.
In 2000, an RCMP task force
looked into the deaths of two other Saskatchewan aboriginals
found frozen to death, but concluded no charges should be laid
in either case. The review resulted in charges against two veteran
Saskatoon police officers for abandoning another aboriginal man,
Darrell Night, on the outskirts in freezing temperatures.
Saskatchewan justice officials
have also asked RCMP to conduct a criminal investigation into
the abandonment of an aboriginal woman in 1976.
With a report from The Canadian
Press © Copyright
2003 Bell Globemedia Inc.
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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
Truth suppress'd, whether
by courts or crooks, will find an avenue to be told. Sheila Steele, injusticebusters.com
If you hold the mouth
of Truth, It will burst out its rib-cage. Somali proverb
Publisher : Sheila
Steele
Got something
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Another target
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Index
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This is not
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Index to Saskatoon Police stories
This is a pretty good scrapbook
for the 1998-2002 period.
Inquiry into the malicious prosecution of David
Milgaard untanling 36 years of Saskatchewan police and Crown
misconduct: : Opening day 1 | 2
| 3 | 4
| 5 | 6
| 7 |
- Stephen Williams:
Canadian writer subject to Stasi-like treatment by Canadian police
- Terry
Arnold: : Snitch a
suicide?
- RCMP
scenario stings: Brian
Hutchinson starts diggingVopnis
- Abdulai
Mohamed
- Nfld Defamation story:
- Wanda
Young
- Racism
in the Federal Civil Service
The Terrible Story behind the Atif Rafay and
Sebastian Burns convictions
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