Police must be held accountable for deaths

Page 5

Dear Editor:

Canadians, I beg of you. Stop this madness in Saskatchewan!

Police officers are trained to protect the whole of society, without consideration of racial background or national origin of [the people] they deal with. They are called in as peacekeeper whenever trouble breaks out. Canadians should have no cause to fear the police. That's why the activities of the Saskatchewan police department are so disturbing.

As the allegations of Saskatoon police wrongdoing unfold in the news media, most police officers across the country are infuriated. There are stories of peace officers routinely picking up often intoxicated Indians in downtown Saskatoon, driving them to the outskirts of the city and dropping them off at an isolated power station, far away from the prying eyes of witnesses.

Natives are left in ruthlessly cold, winter weather to find their way home in sub-zero temperatures. How does a disoriented Indian find his way home in the flat, wind-swept, treeless Prairies?

For some Indians, these trips end in a rendezvous with death. The frozen bodies of Rodney Naistus, 25, and Lawrence Kim Wegner, 30, were recently found near this favorite drop-off spot on the outskirts of Saskatoon.

When Darrell Night, another Native, was taken by the police on his own ride to the isolated spot to be dropped off, he lived to tell about it.

Now the secret activities of some Saskatoon law enforcement officers have come to public knowledge. The world now has a small glimpse of a dangerous aspect of Native life in Western Canada, seldom seen by the outside world.

Darcy McKenzie, spokesperson for the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, reports over 100 Indians spoke of similar occurrences happening to them over the years. Falling into the hands of some Saskatoon city police officers can turn into a deadly nightmare.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police had to be called in to investigate these deaths. One frozen body of a Native youth was clothed with only a pair of socks, jeans, and T-shirt.

Then there is the frightening story of the Saskatchewan police department officially endorsing the use of a picture resembling a Native woman as the target to be shot at during practice drills on the firing range. This was only stopped when Natives heard about it and protested to police officials.

These national stories ask hard questions of Canadians:

Has the power of racial hatred become so great in this country that we as a society can no longer restrain these evil passions from infecting even the police who are sworn to uphold the law?

Have Canadian standards of acceptable social behavior degenerated, having sunk so low that these grotesque expressions of racial hatred in Saskatoon are really only a reflection of what our society has become?

We know that one atrocity, if not dealt with using great wisdom, always leads to worse atrocities. The Canadian judicial system must put a stop to these acts, otherwise things will get worse.

As these perpetrators of these inhuman acts in Saskatchewan did these things to another human being, I'm sure there were feelings of remorse or guilt. A human being can't just leave someone outside, unprotected, in freezing cold winter weather to die, or point a gun at a picture of an Indian woman and pull the trigger and not realize deep down inside that this is wrong.

Canadians must stop this madness before this insanity infects all society!

Frank T. Horn