|
September
08, 2003 | September 09, 2003
| September 10, 2003 | September
11, 2003 | September 11, 2003
| September 12, 2003
|
continued | Lamer Inquiry in
Newfoundland | Report
comes in | Police
fired | March for
justice | Sabo | Quennell
| Atchison | March
for Justice | Deputy Chief Wiks
discreditable conduct hearing for lying to media | Senger
and Hartwig |
Inquiry into
the freezing death of Neil Stonechild
Lawyers poke holes in
Roy's testimony
Betty Ann Adam, The
StarPhoenix, September 12, 2003
The man who says he saw an
aboriginal teenager being taken away in the back of a police
car said under cross-examination Thursday it was too dark for
him to see whether the driver wore glasses or had a mustache.
Police lawyers spent all of
the fourth day of a public inquiry into the 1990 freezing death
of Neil Stonechild trying to discredit the story of Stonechild's
friend, Jason Roy, who maintains that he last saw Stonechild
being taken away in the back of a police car, with blood on his
face, handcuffs on his wrists and screaming that the police were
going to kill him.
Roy has already testified he
saw the driver on other occasions, once on a city bus, where
the officer stared at him until he got off, and once at a youth
centre, where Roy said he could see the man was over six feet
tall, wore glasses and had a mustache.
When Jay Watson, lawyer for
Const. Bradley Senger, who has standing at the inquiry, asked
Roy what made him think the man he saw on the two subsequent
occasions was the driver from the night Stonechild went missing,
Roy replied: "Because I knew that person was an officer."
Senger was a suspect in the
2000 RCMP task force investigating the Stonechild death.
The task force also looked
into the possibility police had abandoned other Native men on
the outskirts of the city in freezing weather. Senger was never
charged.
Another Saskatoon police constable
who was a suspect in that investigation, Larry Hartwig, also
has standing at the inquiry. He is represented by lawyer Aaron
Fox.
Watson questioned how Roy could
see that Stonechild had a "deep gash" on his nose if
he was in the same dark car as the police officer Roy couldn't
see.
Roy said he paid more attention
to Stonechild, who had his face so close to the car window his
breath was fogging the glass, and that the officer remained behind
the steering wheel, sometimes turning to the on-board computer.
Roy acknowledged he didn't
actually see any handcuffs on Stonechild but assumed he was wearing
them because he kept his hands behind his back.
He also acknowledged that he
may have filled in the blanks in his memory in his efforts to
remember details of that night.
He admitted he regularly abused
alcohol at the time.
Roy also fielded questions
for the second day about a statement he signed which appears
to clear the police of wrongdoing. Roy has said the statement
was made under duress and that the date which appears on the
document is three weeks before the day he actually made the statement.
Watson grilled Roy on whether
he dated the document and seized on what sounded like a slip
of the tongue in which Roy said the officer asked him "to
sign and date" it. Though Roy immediately corrected himself
and declared he was simply told to sign the statement, Watson
persisted in the questioning.
"So 20 seconds ago you
were mistaken?" Watson demanded.
"You're making this up
as you go along, aren't you?" Watson said. Stonechild's
brother in the back of the room emitted an expression of indignation
and left the room.
The statement is dated Nov.
30, 1990. Stonechild's frozen body was found Nov. 29.
Roy wrote in the statement
that he last saw Stonechild walking around some apartment buildings.
He made no mention of Stonechild being in a police cruiser.
Roy said he wrote it in an
interview room at the police station after being arrested on
another offence. He said an officer asked him if he wanted to
reconsider an earlier statement about the night Stonechild disappeared,
then left him alone with a blank form.
Roy said Thursday he had forgotten
making that statement until it was brought to his attention during
the 2000 RCMP investigation.
Roy has said he had previously
given a statement to a plainclothes officer at a house in the
days after Stonechild's funeral, which included the account of
Stonechild in the police car. He said he never heard anything
more from police about that statement until Dec. 20, 1990 when
he was arrested and asked to reconsider.
Roy couldn't say if the officer
at the police station was the same as the one who took the statement
at the house, because, although the interview at the house lasted
about two hours, he sat side by side with the officer as they
talked.
The three police lawyers who
cross-examined a weary-looking Roy also posed questions suggesting
another youth may have played a role in Stonechild's death.
Stonechild had previously been
subpoenaed to testify against the youth at a trial that fell
through before he testified. Also, that fall, the youth had beaten
Stonechild with the butt end of a shotgun in a dispute over stolen
guns.
That person's name cannot be
published under provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
Stonechild's and Roy's name can be used because the usual ban
on their names was lifted for the inquiry.
Roy said he first talked to
the other youth about Stonechild's death about eight years later.
Roy said the man wanted to
know if Roy had said anything to anybody about him being involved.
"I said I had no reason
to. . . . He seemed interested," Roy said.
Drew Plaxton, lawyer for the
Saskatoon Police Association, pressed Roy on just how interested
the man was in the topic, repeating the question until inquiry
commissioner Justice David Wright stopped him, saying Roy had
answered the question.
Roy "absolutely"
denied being afraid of that youth. He said he never suspected
that youth had been involved in the death.
He denied being influenced
by the youth or his friends to say they weren't involved.
"I had no reason to. I
never saw him that night," Roy said.
Plaxton also quizzed Roy about
his fear of the police and drew attention to Roy's previous statement
that he has never been afraid to talk about what happened to
Stonechild.
"I'm not afraid to say
what I have to say but that doesn't change the fact I'm afraid
of the police," Roy said.
The day began with Silas Halyk,
lawyer for the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, suggesting
records about Roy police disclosed to the inquiry were incomplete
because they inexplicably failed to mention an Oct. 24, 1990
probation order made by a provincial court judge.
Halyk said he had to go to
background documents to find the order and suggested that Fox
owed Roy an apology.
Fox retorted that the terms
of the probation were included in the police document and said
he took offence at Halyk's suggestion.
Wright said he would note that
the two lawyers had "scolded each other" and asked
if the hearing could continue. The remark was met with chuckles
and the Fox resumed his questioning in a lighter, friendlier
tone.
The inquiry resumes Monday,
when Roy's testimony will continue.
© Copyright 2003 The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon)
'I
lied for my life': friend
Lawyer probes inconsistencies in 1990 statement
Betty Ann Adam, The
StarPhoenix, September 11, 2003
A signed statement that appears
to clear police of wrongdoing in the 1990 freezing death of Neil
Stonechild became the focus of questions at the commission of
inquiry looking in the matter Wednesday.
Jason Roy, the man who wrote
and signed the statement, said the document was full of half
truths and lies written to appease the police because he was
afraid of them.
Roy also said he made the false
statement three weeks after the date which appears on the two-page,
handwritten police document.
In cross-examination, lawyer
Aaron Fox, who represents former suspect Const. Larry Hartwig,
confronted Roy with the statement and grilled him on inconsistencies
in details of his account.
Roy, who was 16 at the time,
said he wrote the statement declaring he last saw Stonechild
after they argued while trying to find a friend and that he blacked
out until the next morning.
The statement makes no mention
of seeing Stonechild in the back seat of a police cruiser with
blood on his face and screaming, "they're gonna kill me."
Roy said he wrote that false
statement on Dec. 20, three weeks after Stonechild's body was
found in the city's remote north industrial area, not on Nov.
30, 1990, which is the date on the statement.
Roy said the first statement
he actually gave to police did include the incident in which
a police car stopped him as he returned to a house where he had
been drinking with Stonechild earlier in the evening: that a
police car pulled out of an alley and stopped him; that Stonechild
was in the back seat with blood on his face, handcuffed and screaming
that police were going to kill him.
Roy told commission lawyer
Joel Hesje he had arranged to tell the real story shortly after
to a police officer on the condition he not be arrested for being
on the run from a community home for young offenders.
Roy met with an officer, whose
name he doesn't remember, one evening shortly after Stonechild's
funeral. He made sure two friends were present at the house on
Avenue P and 11th Street because he was afraid to be alone with
the police, he said.
The officer wrote the account
as Roy talked. The interview lasted about two hours and resulted
in a statement that Roy thought was three to six pages long.
The plainclothes officer said
he would look into the matter and get back to him. He never did.
Roy said he was arrested three
weeks later, taken to the police station and placed in an interview
room. A police officer asked him if he wanted to reconsider his
previous statement, gave him a blank form and told him to write
what he remembered from the night Stonechild disappeared.
"My birthday was two days
later. I wanted to see it," Roy said.
"I felt I was in a position,
a place, I did not feel safe. I lied for my life," Roy said.
Roy said he didn't have any
other contact with police until months later, after he had told
Stella Bignell he had seen her son in a police car the night
he disappeared.
Days after telling Bignell
the account, Roy said he went to the police station and asked
to speak to two homicide detectives. He said he gave two men
in plain clothes his story, that "they took a couple notes"
and said they would get back to him.
Roy never heard from them again,
either, he said.
In July 2000, when an RCMP
task force was investigating the possibility police had that
winter abandoned several aboriginal men on the city's outskirts,
Roy repeated his story to RCMP Const. Jack Warner.
In that account he said Stonechild
was angry at him when Stonechild was in the police car. He said
he made no mention of Stonechild being afraid, as he has testified
at the inquiry, because he was skeptical about police investigation
techniques.
"I've been scared for
a long time," he said.
"The minute I knew Neil
was dead, the circumstances just didn't sit well with me."
Roy said his fear was fuelled
by incidents in which he thought he saw the driver of the police
car watching him and other incidents in which people he could
not identify seemed to be following him.
One time when he went to meet
a reporter at a restaurant, two men watched him go in and then
sat at the table directly behind him in the otherwise empty restaurant.
When he left, the two men also left minutes later.
On another occasion, his common-law
wife was arrested but released without any charges being laid,
Roy said.
Further details of that arrest
will be described by the woman, who is scheduled to testify later
in the inquiry.
In cross-examination, Fox asked
Roy how long he had had an alcohol problem.
"Since before I was born,"
he said with a resigned tone.
He said he was born into an
alcoholic family and had been drinking since he was about 13.
In 1990 Roy, who is 5-foot-9,
weighed about 120 pounds.
He said he and Stonechild drank
most of a 26-ounce or 40-ounce bottle of vodka before they went
out in a blizzard to try to visit a friend at a nearby apartment
complex.
Fox questioned Roy on his time
estimates of events of Nov. 24, zeroed in on inconsistencies
in details and pumped him on the solidity of an answer qualified
by a "probably."
He grilled Roy on why he only
recently began describing Stonechild as looking scared in the
police car when he used to say Stonechild looked angry.
And though Roy had so far only
told the inquiry he and Stonechild went out that night to find
Lucille Horse at a nearby apartment, he admitted to Fox that
they could also have intended to commit a break-in to obtain
more alcohol.
At one point, Fox used Justice
Department documents to demonstrate that Roy was not unlawfully
at large from a community home for young offenders as he has
said. Roy has said he lied to police about his identity when
Stonechild was in their car because he didn't want to be picked
up too.
When FSIN lawyer Silas Halyk
stood up and pointed out that Roy was in breach of a probation
order, which would have given him reason to give a false name
to police, people in the hotel meeting room where the inquiry
is being held murmured expressions of satisfaction.
Fox also showed that Roy was
arrested again on Dec. 28 of that year and twice in January 1991,
contrary to his previous statements.
Fox will continue to cross-examine
Roy today.
Roy could also be cross-examined
by lawyers for another former suspect -- Const. Bradley Raymond
Senger, the Saskatoon Police Service, the Saskatoon Police Association,
the Bignell family and his own lawyer.
Complete transcripts of the
hearings, along with schedules and witness lists are open to
the public on the commission's Web site at www.stonechildinquiry.ca.
© Copyright 2003 The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon)
Bloodied
teen seen in cop car: inquiry
Betty Ann Adam, The
StarPhoenix, September 10, 2003
When Jason Roy saw his friend
Neil Stonechild in the back seat of a Saskatoon police cruiser
on a snowy night 13 years ago, it never occurred to him his friend
was in any danger, Roy told the commission of inquiry looking
into Stonechild's 1990 freezing death.
"He was very irate. He
was freaking out, saying 'Jay, help me. These guys are gonna
kill me.'
"He had fresh blood on
his face, across his nose . . . he had his face to the window,
asking me to help him. Not for one minute did I think he was
in any danger," Roy told the inquiry Tuesday.
"I thought, 'he'll go
back to Kilburn Hall. I'll see him when he gets out,' "
Roy said.
Roy began his testimony late
in the second day of the public inquiry created to find answers
to nagging questions about how Stonechild, 17, got to a field
in the remote north industrial area of Saskatoon on a November
night during an early winter blizzard.
Two police constables who were
questioned by RCMP in 2000 as possible suspects in Stonechild's
death, Larry Hartwig and Brian Senger, arrived at the hearing
shortly after Roy took the stand. It was the officers' first
appearance at the inquiry, which began Monday.
Family and friends have flatly
rejected the police theory that the Cree youth had died from
hypothermia while trying to turn himself in at the adult correctional
centre a few blocks from the place where his body was found.
Stonechild was unlawfully at
large from a community home for young offenders where he was
serving a six-month sentence for break and enter.
Roy and Stonechild, who had
known each other since serving time together in a youth detention
facility four years earlier, met downtown and decided to drink
together that night.
They took a bus to visit someone
on the east side of the city and then returned to more familiar
locations on the west side.
They took a pair of stolen
leather gloves to Stonechild's older brother, Marcel, who said
Tuesday he bought Neil a bottle of vodka in exchange.
The teens went to the nearby
house of Flora Binning, where they drank and played Kaiser with
her, her boyfriend Eddie Rushton and a half dozen other people.
Sometime between 11 p.m. and
1 a.m., Roy and Stonechild left to walk the three blocks to an
apartment complex where a girlfriend of Stonechild's was babysitting.
They stopped to warm up at
the 7-Eleven across the street from their destination, and then
went to the apartment complex where they buzzed various suites
looking for the girl.
Roy said he and Stonechild
were separated in the dark snowstorm as they walked between the
buildings and he went back to the convenience store to warm up
before returning to the Binning residence.
A block from the house, a police
cruiser with Stonechild in the back seat pulled in front of him
from an alley.
As Stonechild screamed at him
to help him, Roy answered the police questions by lying about
his identity. While police waited for a computer check on the
fake identity, the officer driving asked Roy if he knew the guy
in the back seat.
"I said 'no.' I didn't
want to be in that car with them," Roy said.
As police drove away, southbound
on Confederation Drive, Roy saw Stonechild looking out the back
window of the cruiser.
"He was staring at me.
He just looked scared. He just looked very, very scared. I thought,
he'll go back to Kilburn. I'll see him when he gets out."
Roy returned to the Binning
house. He never saw Stonechild alive again.
Roy's testimony will continue
today.
Earlier in the day, Marcel
Stonechild told the inquiry he has long blamed himself for his
brother's death because he had provided the alcohol for the youth
that night.
Stonechild said two parallel
cuts on his brother's face at the funeral home looked like they'd
been caused by handcuffs and the scrapes on his wrists were consistent
with that.
Stonechild said he immediately
declared his suspicion to his mother and other family members.
Lawyers for Hartwig and Senger
questioned Stonechild's assertion, highlighting contradictory
information from his mother, Stella Bignell, who said she didn't
have reason to suspect police until months later when Roy came
and told her what he had seen.
The family focused on Neil's
fear of another youth who had beaten him up in previous weeks
over some stolen firearms.
Stonechild downplayed the possibility
of that youth's involvement. After hearing of a rumour that the
youth may have been responsible, Marcel Stonechild said he sought
out the youth.
"I wanted him to tell
me himself that he didn't do it," Stonechild said.
Senger's lawyer, Jay Watson,
also focused on an inconsistency in Stonechild's description
of the beating the youth had inflicted on Neil. In an earlier
statement to RCMP, Marcel had described a "pretty bad"
beating with the butt end of a shotgun.
Stonechild maintained he believes
the youth's denial of involvement because the youth was a longtime
friend of the Stonechild brothers and loved Neil despite the
fight over stolen property.
The youth, whose name has not
been included on a list of witnesses may yet be called to testify,
said commission lawyer Joel Hesje. His name is protected by the
Criminal Youth Justice Act.
Stonechild had high praise
for Const. Ernie Louttit, an aboriginal officer with the Saskatoon
Police Service, who had tried to help the family find out more
about Neil's death.
"He's like a guidance
counsellor with a badge," Stonechild said.
When Louttit stopped coming
to visit the family, he said he had been warned he would be reprimanded
if he continued to investigate the case, which was closed.
The inquiry also heard from
community home operator Patricia Pickard, who said she was never
satisfied with the police investigation into the death. She had
voiced her concerns to her superiors in the Department of Social
Services but was strongly advised to remain silent on the matter.
Though she was frustrated by
the "gag order" in 1991, Pickard dared not violate
the rule for fear of losing her job keeping custody of young
offenders.
Pickard threw caution to the
wind in 2000, however, when she learned the RCMP intended to
exclude Stonechild's death from their task force looking into
the deaths of two other aboriginal men, Lawrence Wegner and Rodney
Naistus, who had frozen to death on the outskirts of the city
after possible contact with police.
The matter had attracted great
attention because another aboriginal man, Darrell Night, said
he had been abandoned by police on the city's outskirts on a
January night while intoxicated.
"This is too coincidental.
The pattern is too similar to Neil's. . . . Was it possible this
had happened 10 years ago?" Pickard said.
Two Saskatoon police constables,
Dan Hatchen and Ken Munson were convicted of forcible confinement
in the case and sentence to eight month jail terms.
Public inquests were held in
the other cases but no charges were laid in either case.
Pickard said she called aboriginal
lawyer Don Worme to talk about her concerns instead of the police
or the RCMP because she didn't know who she could trust.
Pickard took Worme's advice
and talked to the RCMP task force.
Complete transcripts of inquiry
testimony can be found at the commission's Web site, www.stonechildinquiry.ca.
© Copyright 2003 The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon)
Mom
saw bruising: Stonechild inquiry hears tearful testimony during
first day
Betty
Ann Adam, The StarPhoenix, September 09, 2003
The first day of a long-awaited
commission of inquiry into the 1990 freezing death of a Cree
teenager quickly focused on the oddities of the case that have
caused many to wonder whether Saskatoon police played a role
in the death.
Neil Stonechild's frozen body
was discovered in a field in the remote, north industrial area
of Saskatoon on Nov. 29, 1990, five days after he'd gone missing.
He was wearing jeans, a jacket and just one running shoe.
Stonechild's mother, Stella
Bignell, wept as she recalled the shock of seeing the condition
of his body at the funeral home. His handsome face was marred
by a gash across his nose that cut toward his left cheekbone
and which looked to some like a broken nose. There were bruises
on his cheeks and when his sister ran her fingers through his
thick, black hair, which had been inexplicably cut short, she
discovered bumps on his skull.
Both wrists had skin scraped
off them near the thumbs, leading Stonechild's uncle, Gerry Mason,
to secretly suspect the youth had been handcuffed before his
death.
During the spring following
the youth's death, Stonechild's friend, Jason Roy, sought Bignell
out and told her he had last seen Stonechild being taken away
in the back seat of a police cruiser, bloodied and screaming
that the police were going to kill him.
After the discovery of the
body, the behaviour of one police officer was puzzling to Bignell.
She told the inquiry that Const. Ernie Louttit, who is aboriginal,
came to see her and told her he agreed with her that Stonechild
did not take himself to the remote location.
According to Bignell, Louttit
offered to investigate the death independently. He was not assigned
to the case by his superior officers but came to Bignell's house
more than once to visit.
Then one day, Bignell received
a call at work from her daughter, who said Louttit had contacted
her. He had wanted to talk to the two of them that afternoon
at Stella's house.
Louttit never showed up for
the meeting. He never returned any phone calls Bignell made to
him after that. She never heard from him again.
Louttit is among the 62 witnesses
who will be called during the anticipated six weeks of testimony
at the inquiry.
Stonechild had been unlawfully
at large from a community home for young offenders at the time
he went missing, serving a six-month sentence for break and enter.
Police had theorized that Stonechild
may have been intoxicated and attempting to turn himself in to
authorities at the Saskatoon Correctional Centre, which is located
a few blocks north of the spot where he was found.
Community home operator Patricia
Pickard said she came forward in March 1991 to dispute that theory
because Stonechild had phoned her earlier in the evening of Nov.
24. She had tried to convince him to return to her Sutherland
home. Although he refused to turn himself in that night, he agreed
to go with her if she would pick him up at his mother's house
the next afternoon.
Stonechild knew guards at the
adult jail would not accept him if he turned himself in there,
Pickard said. He also knew he would probably not spend any time
in jail if he turned himself in to her, Pickard said.
All of Monday's witnesses described
Stonechild as a happy, personable youth. He had a close relationship
with his mother.
Bignell and her sister, Debbie
Mason, testified they were visiting at Bignell's house the night
Stonechild was last seen. Both said Stonechild came to Bignell
and promised her he would turn himself in to authorities after
the weekend. Bignell warned him to stay inside because there
was a snowstorm and the weather was very cold.
Stonechild hugged and kissed
his mother before he left to join a friend who was waiting in
a car outside. His family never saw him again.
Those who knew Stonechild well
never believed he had walked to the field where he died.
Initial speculation involved
two brothers with whom Stonechild had had an altercation a few
weeks earlier, when Stonechild was trying to sell to the brothers
guns stolen in a break-in.
Their names cannot be published
under provisions of the Criminal Youth Justice Act.
Stonechild was afraid of one
of the youths and was relieved when he was excused from having
to testify against him at a trial that fell through, Pickard
said.
After Bignell was quoted in
a newspaper article saying she suspected a gang had been involved,
the youth, whom Bignell had known for years, came to see her
and promised her he had had nothing to do with Neil's death.
She believed him.
Stonechild's family didn't
really suspect police involvement in the early months after his
death, although the possibility had been tossed around in a discussion
at his wake, Pickard said.
In the days before the news
of Stonechild's death, his brother had come to Bignell with a
report from a friend, Eddie Rushton, that Neil had been picked
up by police. Bignell said she followed up that report with a
phone call to the police station. A woman there told Bignell
a car had been sent out to look for Neil. The woman transferred
Bignell to detention, where staff said the youth was not in custody.
In the first months after her
son's death, Bignell gave no thought to that early report. She
guessed that Neil had gone with a friend to visit the friend's
home reserve, as he had mentioned he would like to do.
A television news report on
Nov. 29 revealed a frozen body had been found, but when Bignell
heard it was a man in his 30s she dismissed the possibility it
could be her son. Hours later, a plainclothes officer came and
told her the body found was her son.
The family still wonders why
they were unable to retrieve Neil's clothing. Although police
told the media in March the investigation was closed, they told
the family the investigation was ongoing.
During one visit to the police
station, an officer Bignell knew from her church, Eli Tarasoff,
told her he believed Neil did not go to the field on his own.
Inquiry lawyer Joel Hesje advised
each of the day's four witnesses that their testimony cannot
be used against them in any future criminal or civil matters
although they could be charged with perjury if they are found
to contradict themselves.
While the commission cannot
punish wrongdoing uncovered at the inquiry, the door remains
open for the "proper authorities" to lay charges, said
Justice David Wright, who is the commissioner of the inquiry.
Hesje outlined the case he
intends to present, laying out the evidence in chronological
order, including testimony from people who last had contact with
Stonechild and police records showing possible police contact
on Nov. 24, 1990.
Examination of the events around
the discovery of the body will include interviews with police,
the coroner and pathologist. Review of the police investigation
will look at the chain of command and will include the testimony
of numerous current and former police officers.
Their evidence will describe
the policies, procedures and practices of the police service
and will outline any changes that have been made.
The inquiry will remain open
to the public. Times and places of hearings, as well as transcripts
of each day's testimony will be posted on the commission's Web
site at www.stonechildinquiry.ca
© Copyright 2003 The
StarPhoenix (Saskatoon)
62 people scheduled to
testify at inquiry
The StarPhoenix, September
10, 2003
The following is a list of
witnesses scheduled to testify at the commission of inquiry into
the 1990 death of Neil Stonechild.
Additional witnesses could
be called to testify.
- 1. Stella Bignell
- 2. Debbie Mason
- 3. Gerry Mason
- 4. Marcel Stonechild
- 5. Pat Pickard
- 6. Jason Roy
- 7. Cheryl Antoine
- 8. Flora Binning
- 9. Julie Binning
- 10. Sharon Night
- 11. Gary Horse
- 12. Lucille Neetz-Horse
- 13. Trent Ewart
- 14. Const. Perry Szabo
- 15. Sgt. Irwin Axness
- 16. Jack Hieser
- 17. Sgt. Timothy Seller
- 18. Bruce Genaille
- 19. Tracy Horse
- 20. Shelley Grigorovich
- 21. Brenda Valiaho
- 22. Dianna Fraser
- 23. Father Andre Poilievre
- 24. Jason Stonechild
- 25. Erica Stonechild
- 26. Rene Lagimodiere
- 27. Sgt. John Middleton
- 28. Bob Morton
- 29. Staff Sgt. Michael Petty
- 30. Dr. Brian Fern
- 31. Dr. Jack Adolph
- 32. Keith Jarvis
- 33. Joe Penkala
- 34. Frank Simpson
- 35. Dave Wilton
- 36. Ed Drader
- 37. Theodore Johnson
- 38. Bruce Bolton
- 39. Staff Sgt. Raymond Pfiel
- 40. Sgt. Neil Wylie
- 41. Const. Goeffrey Brand
- 42. Sgt. Al Brooks
- 43. Sgt. John Woodley
- 44. Dennis Read
- 45. Const. Lawrence Hartwig
- 46. Const. Bradley Senger
- 47. Const. Ernie Louttit
- 48. Eli Tarasoff
- 49. Mayor Jim Maddin
- 50. David Scott
- 51. Sgt. Ken Lyons
- 52. Cpl. Jack Warner
- 53. Graeme Dowling
- 54. Gary Robertson
- 55. Sgt. Chuck Laret
- 56. Sgt. Murray Zoorkan
- 57. Milt Atwell
- 58. Joe Thomas
- 59. Bob Morrison
- 60. Kirk Dyk
- 61. Glen Winslow
- 62. Deputy chief Dan Wiks
© Copyright 2003 The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon)
Stonechild vigil sets
tone for inquiry:
Vigil also remembers other aboriginal people who have gone missing
Shauna
Rempel, The StarPhoenix , September 08, 2003
With the Neil Stonechild inquiry
about to get under way, friends and supporters rallied around
the dead youth's family to share their grief and anger.
The emotion was palpable at
a candlelight vigil held Saturday in memory of the 17-year-old
Stonechild -- who succumbed to hypothermia on the outskirts of
Saskatoon in November 1990 -- and in memory of dozens of aboriginal
people who have gone missing or were murdered over recent decades.
Among the 175 or so people gathered in the parking lot of St.
Paul's Hospital, there were many tears and raised voices. There
was little laughter.
Stella Bignell, Stonechild's
mother, seemed nearly overcome with grief at times during the
day. With her relatives propping her up on either side, Bignell
told The StarPhoenix she hopes the inquiry will mean that justice
will finally be done.
"One way or another they've
gotta find out. One way or another they're gonna have proof,"
she said, before breaking into tears.
Neil Stonechild's sister, Erica
Stonechild, said although the weeks ahead will be difficult for
her mother, the inquiry is nothing compared to the feelings of
sorrow and helplessness her mother has felt during the last 13
years.
Bignell had long felt there
was something suspicious with her son's death. Stonechild's body
was found in a field in the north industrial area of town after
he had gone missing for five days.
A police investigation at the
time concluded an intoxicated Stonechild had died while trying
to walk across the city to turn himself in at the correctional
centre, because he had unlawfully left a group home where he
was serving a sentence for break and enter.
In 2000, an allegation by Darrell
Night, another Cree man, that he had been picked up by police
while intoxicated and abandoned in a field by the Queen Elizabeth
power station on the outskirts of Saskatoon led to an RCMP task
force looking into other complaints.
n CONT'D: Please see Vigil/A2
Vigil: Stonechild inquiry
seen as just the beginning
n Continued from A1
Rodney Naistus and Lawrence
Wegner, two other aboriginal men with histories of substance
abuse, were found frozen to death in the same area around the
same time as Night.
Constables Dan Hatchen and
Ken Munson were found guilty of forcible confinement in the Night
case, but no charges have been laid in any of the other cases.
Mark Ewart, who supplied water
to Saturday's memorial and candlelight vigil from his neighbouring
home, said Stonechild's inquiry should only be the beginning.
"The inquiry needs to
get at the whole system," he said while helping to light
more than a dozen tiny candles on his deck Saturday evening.
Ewart said he was disappointed
he hadn't seen any police officers at the event, which was organized
by activists John Melenchuk and Richard Klassen.
Years of unequal social conditions
and racial tension have led to a "them-against-us"
mentality between Natives and the police, said Equal Justice
For All founder Mildred Kerr. Both sides have tried to make scapegoats
of each other and it needs to stop, she said.
Jason Roy, who may have been
one of the last people to see Stonechild alive, attended the
vigil and said there should be more events like it to expose
the "government whitewash.
"No one listens and no
one wants to listen," he said in an interview.
Neil Stonechild has become
a rallying point over all unsolved deaths involving aboriginal
people, like Quentin Ermine's father Robin Ermine, who was murdered
in 1987. Quentin Ermine joined members of the Naistus and Wegner
families Saturday to remember their dead.
Amid the grief and anger, Stonechild's
cousin Angel Cloud was able to find hope that the teen's death
will bring justice for others.
"His death wasn't in vain.
Something is going to come out of it," she said in an interview.
"It's going to change Native people from here on in for
the rest of our lives. We can't turn a blind eye to it anymore."
Shelley Cote, who attended
the vigil with her nine-month-old son John, was also looking
to the future.
"What's happening here
with the cops . . . I hope this comes to a stop because this
could happen to our children, too," she said.
The inquiry begins today at
the Radisson Hotel and is scheduled to take place in various
Saskatoon locations until Oct. 23.
POLYGRAPH RESULTS RULED INADMISSIBLE:
The results of a polygraph
test are inadmissible in the Stonechild inquiry, a judge ruled
last week.
Inquiry commissioner Justice
David Wright was asked to rule whether testimony obtained using
a lie detector, or polygraph machine, would be heard during the
inquiry into the 1990 freezing death of Neil Stonechild, a 17-year-old
Cree teen. It will hear evidence from 62 witnesses, including
at least one who took a polygraph test.
Wright said results of a polygraph
test are not relevant when determining a witness's credibility,
particularly when the person who took the test is already testifying
at the inquiry. Similarly, Wright ruled that a witness's refusal
to take a polygraph test should not be used as evidence against
his or her credibility.
"In the final analysis
I must determine the credibility of the witnesses," he wrote
in his Thursday ruling.
However, Wright mentioned that
polygraph testing is a widely used investigative tool and his
ruling should not be taken as a comment on the conduct of the
Neil Stonechild police investigation.
The inquiry is set to start
today.
© Copyright 2003 The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon)
continued
> > > Coverage of
Neil Stonechild Inquiry
|
Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
