injusticebusters 1999 > > Activism: It can take many forms. Just find a groove and move.

A living scrapbook of injustices in progress and the tools to set them right
Restoring reputations to the defamed -- Telling the truth about the undefamable

2005 : Year of the David Milgaard Inquiry: 35 years in the making!

Revitalizing the archives

From 1998 until 2002, injusticebusters was in the throes of an identity crisis. What was it? What were we doing? We grappled with editorial policy at the same time we were learning the nuts and bolts of building and posting a website. Once we had a secure, paid site I had full editorial control, although I talked regularly to Richard Klassen who was forced to move his family several times and did not always have access to the internet.

I began following other threads to stories of police and prosecutorial misconduct and the site took on another facet to its character: a newsclipping scrapbook where stories could live longer than they would in print form. I also began picking up other stories of wrongfully convicted people. It was an explosion. By 2003 there were over 700 pages. I also had contact with several other people (Don Smith, Leon Walchuk, Monique Turenne, the Vopnis) and kept these stories going.

When Richard Klassen began to make progress in bringing his civil claim to court, the government and police defendants alleged he was breaking the rules of court by publishing discovery material on the internet.

This claim was absolutely false. However, rather than risk being thrown out of his civil claim, Klassen undertook before Judge Mona Dovall to sever all ties with the website.

Now that some of the dust has settled, I have been going back through the material we had posted in the early days. In the spirit of keeping the scrapbook alive, I have been reformatting and placing links. The original material remains intact. I hope the information, which chronicles our struggle is useful to you.

The identity crisis is over. We know who we are --Sheila Steele, March 28, 2005

Early activism

I posted the following in 1999. I was busy postering myself (posters which were eventually seen by Michell and Michael Ross who contacted me . )

Apart from that response, these attempts at mobilizing people fell quite flat.

I learned that people who are interested in protesting issues of injustice in far-away lands are not so eager to protest what is happening in their own back yard.

Activism: Find a groove and move!

The internet gives us an unprecedented opportunity to pursue justice. For the first time we learn of actions in small communities which don't get covered by the larger media. This website has gained credibility after a couple years of consistently publishing truthful stories. We hope that it will eventually affect the city of Saskatoon which has a long history of difficulty with the police. For many years, people have thrown their hands in the air after hearing yet another story of someone beat up by the police or subjected to an illegal search and seizure. No one was policing the police. The Complaints investigator was -- and still is -- a joke. Darrell Night's account of his treatment got people's attention. Saskatoon cops may still be claiming that was an isolated incident but more and more people know that is a lie. Brian Dueck has built an entire career on manufacturing cases and managing his publicity. Now we have had a hand in managing some of that publicity!

It would be our dream to see websites such as our own emerging in every city, reporting the news and naming the names the larger media are afraid to touch. Darryl Night was able to get his story told because he remembered verifiable details from his midnight ride. In any encounter with the police, citizens should get the badge numbers, squad car number, licence plate -- any descriptive details which will allow them to investigate injustices they believe should be set right. Websites like injusticebusters will publish these stories so others can read them. We can change the tune from "there's nothing we can do about it," to "let's make those cops account for themselves."

Anyone who feels he/she has been badly treated in court also has recourse. Keep your papers. Trust your instincts. Raise your complaints. Publish the names of the lawyers or judges who stepped over the line. You CAN make a difference! Telling the truth is the important social activism!

Postering against the war on drugs and other issues:

We have lots of work for anyone who wants to help!

As well as continuing to push for the public inquiries into Saskatachewan Justice, Cape Breton Children's Aid Society and the Alberta Workers Compensation Board, and gathering new evidence of criminal social working, injusticebusters 1999 actions have included researching and intervening where possible in the Saskatoon Police drug sting called Flotilla where the most brazen and objectionable use of a police agent resulted in charges of trafficking (for very small amounts of drugs) against at least 19 people. We see this abuse of citizens (both the agent and those charged) as completely unacceptable and believe the higher courts will also view it this way when the full facts of the case are placed before them. This case is an anatomy of how

police construct cases from the flimsiest material,
the media give substance to the case by accepting police PR on its face,
crown prosecutors use multiple charges and over-charging to extract plea bargains from terrified "dealers" at the same time they withhold exculpatory evidence and
defence lawyers in Saskatoon play right along, even to the point of agreeing to delay trial dates when the Crown loses its witness!

injusticebusters will follow this case and show the bones of corruption, which are not the individual officers of the court involved but the exceptions to proper law which are allowed because of drug hysteria. The success with breaking the law to serve the "greater good," that is, the idea that drugs could be controlled by enforcement at the ass-end of things, became the rationale for "relaxing" (that is, breaking) the law in the service of ridding the public of other hysterically generated social phenomenon:

satanic child abuse,
women's right to deny father's rights because of exaggerated vulnerability,
outlawing child-porn, making the infantile and spoiled personalities who pursue such endeavors more insistent on their right to have it,
exaggerating the numbers of actual child-diddlers so the real ones can get lost in the shuffle, and
a complete collapse of the distinction between thought and action. (Past actions)

Everyone is a potential victim of the war on drugs!

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

Truth crushed to earth will rise again. --William Cullen Bryant


Publisher : Sheila Steele
Co-founder: Richard Klassen

Got something to say about this or any other stories on this site? Go to injusticebustersblog Participate!

injusticebusters court advice :
How to walk yourself through the justice system

Why you should dump your preliminary hearing (written July 1998 and still valid)

Our activism contributed greatly to the good vibes which happened around the civil trial. (More Links provided below)

Index to the stories on this website

This is not regularly updated so if you are looking for a particular story and you have a name or keyword, please use the site search engine(at the bottom of the page) which IS regularly updated

Index to Saskatoon Police stories

This is a pretty good scrapbook for the 1998-2002 period.

Activism