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in Newfoundland | Report
published | March
for Justice | | Petty
harassment dueing Klassen/Kvello civil trial |
Inquiry into
the freezing death of Neil Stonechild (3)
Investigation incomplete,
Scott says
Betty Ann Adam, The StarPhoenix,
November 29. 2003
Dave Scott, former media relations
officer for the Saskatoon police, didn't think Neil Stonechild's
mother's public allegation of racism by the police was a grave
enough concern to take to the chief of police.
Scott, who later became chief
of police himself, testified Thursday at the inquiry looking
into the 1990 freezing death of the 17-year-old Saulteaux youth
that he now thinks the investigation was incomplete.
Numerous witnesses at the inquiry,
now in its seventh week, have declared that the investigation
failed to answer basic questions or rule out the possibility
of foul play.
Scott agrees.
"There could have been
more work done on the investigation," Scott said. He acknowledged
that the circumstances should have raised questions about how
Stonechild got to the field.
Scott was the police chief
in 2000 when allegations arose that Saskatoon police sometimes
abandoned intoxicated aboriginal troublemakers on the outskirts
of the city. He requested the RCMP do an independent investigation.
That task force investigation
included the 10-year-old Stonechild case, in which police closed
the file without finding out how the teenager got to a field
in the north industrial area where his body was found, after
less than three day's investigation and without ruling out foul
play.
Stonechild's friend, Jason
Roy, had told people he saw Stonechild the night he went missing,
in a police car, bloody and handcuffed and screaming, "they're
gonna kill me."
The RCMP investigation did
not result in any charges but led to the current inquiry.
On Thursday, Scott took a similar
position to several other police and former police who have testified
at the inquiry: he has no independent memory of the Stonechild
file, he fulfilled his job description and can't recall having
any curiosity about how the youth got to where his body was found
on Nov. 29, 1990.
Scott was questioned, in particular,
about a March 1991 StarPhoenix article in which Stonechild's
family complained about the investigation.
Scott was quoted in the article
saying police had done a thorough investigation and had "pursued
every avenue."
Asked Thursday where he would
have gotten information to state that "a tremendous amount
of work" went into the investigation, Scott said he probably
asked the investigator, then-sergeant Keith Jarvis or Jarvis's
supervisor, then-staff sergeant Bud Johnson.
As the media relations officer,
Scott said he didn't read files he commented on because he didn't
want to be privy to information that was being withheld by the
investigator.
The newspaper article stated
that Scott pointed to a "hefty file" when answering
questions about the Stonechild investigation.
The file probably was not the
Stonechild file, Scott said.
He surmised that then-StarPhoenix
reporter Terry Craig may have been referring to a file of Crime
Stoppers information or another of daily occurrences from the
past 24 hours, which he always kept on his desk when briefing
the media.
Scott agreed the allegation
by Stonechild's mother, Stella Bignell, was very serious, when
she said that the investigation would have been more thorough
if the victim had been the mayor's son, but Scott didn't think
it was serious enough that he would have read through the file
himself to see if it had been investigated thoroughly.
Nor did he think the racism
allegation warranted his discussing the matter with then chief
of police, Joe Penkala.
"I was always very sensitive
to any allegation of racism related to the Saskatoon Police Service,"
Scott told Drew Plaxton, lawyer for the police union.
"When things concerned
me, I did talk to people about those concerns," Scott said.
"I can't recall having
any concerns on this file," Scott answered Plaxton a few
minutes later.
Scott said he attended daily
morning meetings with senior police executive to brief them on
his work but he didn't necessarily brief them on everything.
Asked whether he told the executive
about the Stonechild matter, Scott said, "it's hard to say.
I may have, I may not have."
The inquiry previously heard
Penkala say he was unaware of the Stonechild death and all of
the news coverage of it.
Penkala has said he was also
unaware of the March 1991 article that criticized the investigation.
He said no one told him about it.
Scott denied he deliberately
suppressed information about the Stonechild case or any other
case.
Plaxton said Jim Maddin, a
former police officer who later became the mayor of Saskatoon,
will testify that between 1990 and 1992 there was discussion
within the police department that police may have been involved
in Stonechild's death.
Scott said he had absolutely
no knowledge of such rumour or discussion. Any officer who heard
such a thing should have reported it to his superiors, as required
by the Saskatchewan Police Act, Scott said.
Plaxton also said Maddin will
say there were groups within the Saskatoon Police Service that
may have "kept information contained."
Scott said he understood that
to mean that investigators keep some information secret so as
not to tip off others, such as in a planned prostitution sting.
Scott also acknowledged he
knows of one other incident, in which an officer put his loyalty
for another officer before his obligation to uphold the law.
Scott was also questioned about
how, in January 2000, he handled the allegation by Darrell Night
that two officers abandoned him near the Queen Elizabeth Power
plant.
Scott heard about it on a Saturday
and by the following Monday constables Dan Hatchen and Ken Munson
came to him and admitted they had done it.
Scott said he suspended them
immediately.
Hatchen and Munson were eventually
convicted of unlawful confinement in the Night case, were sentenced
to eight-month jail terms and were fired from the force.
In cross-examination, Si Halyk,
lawyer for the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, said
that on the Monday when Hatchen and Munson made their admission,
Scott phoned Night and asked him if he would participate in a
healing circle with the officers.
Scott said he did not remember
phoning Night.
Halyk accused Scott of trying
to "make it go away," referring to Night's complaint.
Scott denied that.
Halyk asked Scott if there
was any truth to allegations that Scott had twice abandoned persons
on the city outskirts beyond a cemetery past Eighth Street.
Scott absolutely denied the
allegation.
© Copyright 2003 The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon)
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Revitalizing the
archives
From 1998 until
2002, injusticebusters was in the throes of 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. Rick's pages: one | two
We posted our
earliest and later actions.
Early versions
of the site can be found on the Wayback Machine.
I began following
other threads to stories of police and prosecutorial misconduct
and the site's character took on another facet: 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.
It was the
story of the Ross children's treatment at the hands of the Saskatchewan
government which grabbed the attention of The
Fifth Estate.
The civil claim (The $10M Lawsuit as we called it) was only mentioned
briefly at the end of their show which aired in November, 2000.
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.
- MacNeil clinic (the document which started it all)
- The Thompson Papers
- Carol
Bunko-Ruys reports
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.
The court fights:
- Les
Perreaux report
- QB271
These pages have links which
lead to other pages from that era. 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
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<
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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
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)
-
- Sermonette:
The
Naked Truth -- (You
will find links to many more sermonettes in the sidebar on this
page
Another target
of Dueck's malice: : Wilf Hathway
Our activism
contributed greatly to the good vibes which happened around the civil
trial.
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.
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 digging
- Gary
wells: Faulty eye-witness
testimony
-
- Tulia,
Texas
- Gilmer,
Texas
- Willie
Upshaw
- Wrongfully convicted in Canada
- Foster Parent false accusations
- Martensville
- Don
Smith obscenity trial: an obscene conviction
- James
Lockyer
- Hurricane
Carter
- Johnny Cochran speaks up for
Bill Sampson
- Vopnis
- Abdulai
Mohamed
The Terrible Story behind the Atif Rafay and
Sebastian Burns convictions
Trial
set for June 15
We
know part of this disclosure is a forged statement and perjured
affidavit from a Winnipeg cop
-
-
-
-
The
Crown is still fighting Fred Poirier -- and they are losing.
Secret Commissions Case from Northern B.C.
-
-
- 2005: In
the United States the proven wrongful convictions just keep coming
at us!
A round-up of wrongful convictions in Canada
Blogging
Blogging has been in the news.
It is the new, trendy thing with 40,000 new blogs being created
each day. I established a blog for this website last September
and it is now "taking off." These are a few of the
pages with ongoing discussions.
- Tasering Mary Lutz
- Saskatchewan Centenary
- Quint Blog discussion
- Rotten apples in the Saskatoon Police
- Blogging for choice
- Michael Cardamone witch hunt
- Implement recommendations of public
inquiries
- Stealing from the poor
- Vancouver's killer cops
- Tisdale rapists appeal
- Winnipeg police misdeeds
- Milgaard Inquiry
- Chief Sabo: can he be trusted?
- The Old Boys' Club Must Go!
- Vancouver activists
- John Hudak: Falsely accused mountie
- City of intolerance
- Constable Larry Lockwood: Exciteable!
- Eric Cline
This is a great way for like-minded
people to communicate and share our views. It is easier than
making a website and marginally more difficult than a forum.
People who want to contribute
simply have to punch the "comment" link and they will
be taken to a page with a box which allows them to write their
comment, preview and post it. It takes a while for the comment
to show up and some people get impatient and repost. That's fine,
I trash the duplicate posts and no harm done.
Please, please give it a try.
The internet is distinguished from other media in that it is
really and truly interactive. Blogging makes it possible to express
your viewpoint even if you don't have a computer. You can go
to the library or a friend's place or an internet cafe. Once
you've mastered the basics (and believe me, if I can do it, you
can do it) you will be participating in one of the most democratic
-- and potentially powerful -- media the world as we know it
has ever seen.
Come on. Don't be shy. Join
the Weblog World! -- Sheila Steele, March 20, 2005
Toronto Police paid out $30M in secretly resolved
claims over last five years
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