Mother and child killed in shootout

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An RCMP constable shot and killed a Tsuu T'ina mother and her nine-year-old son in the late evening of March 22 on the Tsuu T'ina Nation and left a community in shock and grief.

A Tsuu T'ina Family and Social Services worker, accompanied by a band police officer, was attempting to seize Connie Jacobs' children and, when she resisted, the worker called the Okotoks RCMP for assistance.

"Once the RCMP member arrived on the scene, the residence was again approached," an RCMP news release said. "The police officers were fired upon by a female suspect using a rifle. Police were forced to return fire in self-defence."

The constable, Dave Voller, returned fire with a nine-gauge shotgun killing Jacobs and her son Ty. Jacobs' three other children and two of her grandchildren were in the house when Voller opened fire. Although the RCMP are conducting an internal investigation into the shooting, Tsuu T'ina Nation Chief Roy Whitney and Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Phil Fontaine, called for an independent inquiry at a news conference on March 24. They said they want the independent inquiry to be conducted by an Aboriginal judge who will have an understanding of First Nation communities and be able to operate from a First Nation perspective.

"It will bring a degree of comfort to the family knowing that there's someone that's independent from the existing system that's not been involved that's outside of the province that can assist the family," Whitney said. "Developing the questions that would be pertinent that would address the needs of the family as well as the community." Whitney said he is not saying the RCMP should not conduct an investigation but that he is responding to the Jacobs family's request for an inquiry beyond the police investigation.

"I think it's important that we begin this process immediately." Fontaine said he had been in touch with the Minister of Indian Affairs, Jane Stewart, and discussed the possibility of an independent investigation.

"I conveyed the wishes of the community, the council and the family for an independent investigation," Fontaine said. "This matter will be raised with the justice minister and I expect that we will receive an answer fairly soon."

In an initial interview, Tsuu T'ina Nation administration spokesman Peter Many Wounds, said no one is certain exactly what took place or what the events were leading up to the fatal shooting of the mother and her child.

"We don't know for sure all of the events that occurred," Many Wounds said. "Obviously there was an incident. Obviously there is a mother and child dead. It's a tragedy and we're trying to find out exactly what happened."

Whitney exonerated both the social worker and band police of any wrongdoing and said they had been following department procedure in dealing with the incident.

"To the best of the knowledge that we have, all of the appropriate steps were taken and that we need to continue, we need to have the continuance of those programs in our community." However, Tsuu T'ina Nation Mount Royal College students Marlene Owl Simon and Cory Cardinal do not share Whitney's view that the social worker and the band police officer are totally blameless. Simon said they were too aggressive in attempting to seize Jacobs' children.

"The Child and Family Services, they just go up to a house and take the children away," Simon said. "If the people wanted that we could keep the White child and family services out there." Simon said that the social worker's qualifications to handle the type of situation she was confronted with should be questioned. She also feels that the worker and the band police did not need to involve the RCMP.

"I don't think they should have been involved," Simon said. "They should have sent somebody ahead or somebody who Connie would talk to, maybe another family member, to go in there and talk with her."

Cardinal, chief of the colleges Native student society, the Four Directions Lodge, agreedwith Simon that the events prior to Voller's deadly shotgun blast could have and should have been handled better.

"If that was a White person they wouldn't have shot right away," Cardinal said. "She had a weapon, they knew that, why would they come and confront her like that with so many children in the house."

He said the shooting of the Tsuu T'ina mother and child could have a negative effect on the relationship between the RCMP and First Nation communities.

"I think that it's going to cause a lot of resentment not just in Tsuu T'ina but on other reserves as well with the RCMP," Cardinal said. "You're going to have people afraid to call in the police because they won't know how they're going to act.

"If you have an incident like that, don't you think they would have negotiators or experts in the field."

The shooting came just two days after a First Nations Justice Conference was held in Calgary to discuss ways of reintroducing traditional methods of justice administration to First Nation communities. The consensus among the delegates to the conference was that family and community need to be involved directly in finding root causes of problems in First Nation communities and possibly avoid situations like the one in Tsuu T'ina.

Harley Crowchild, director of the Tsuu T'ina/Stoney Corrections Society, was a delegate to the conference and he said he was in full support of family and community involvement in justice. He said he doesn't know whether the child and family services have incorporated traditional methods of problem resolution into their programs or, if so, how far the traditional approach extends. "Whatever they did they followed it by the books, I guess," Crowchild said. "They're all aware of those (traditional) methods, but I don't know if they practice it. Maybe people were a little too hasty. Maybe the RCMP were a little too hasty."

Many Wounds said the surviving children are with their father and all are staying with relatives for the meantime,but they will receive new housing, possibly within the city of Calgary. Many Wounds said funeral arrangements for Jacobs and her nine-year-old son Ty will be made known by the family following the release of the medical examiners report.