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Everardo Torres | 2005: From Saskatoon to LA, people
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<
< < <More on Lawrence Wegner
Lawrence Wegner
inquest
Another useless
inquiry ends -- a year later and a new justice minister says
matter "not necessarily closed" police
sketch of cop made with help from last witness to see Lawrence
alive (CBC website)
Rodney
Naistus | Neil
Stonechild |
News report prompts review
of Wegner death
Betty
Ann Adam, The StarPhoenix, April 17, 2003
The RCMP will review a CBC
news report about the January 2000 freezing death of Lawrence
Wegner to see if there is any new information, Justice Minister
Eric Cline said Wednesday.
The review does not constitute
the launch of a new investigation but rather continuation of
the investigation into an unsolved suspicious death, Cline said.
"The matter will never
be considered closed as long as there are unanswered questions,"
Cline said.
"I was advised yesterday
the matter was never closed," he said.
"If there's any way we
can get the answers, we will."
Cline's position appears to
differ from that of his predecessor, Chris Axworthy, who wrote
last November to Wegner's family to say no further investigation
was planned.
"If the implication from
the letter was that the matter was closed then I think that was
inaccurate . . . . The investigation must be ongoing as long
as there are unanswered questions.
"The letter was in error.
I'm prepared to take responsibility for that error as minister
of justice and apologize for it," Cline said.
He also said he is "not
shutting the door to a judicial inquiry" into the matter,
though he did not immediately commit to calling one.
Wegner, a 30-year-old with
mental illness and drug addiction, was found dead in a field
near the Queen Elizabeth power plant on Feb. 3, 2000. He had
gone missing three days earlier.
He was found just five days
after another aboriginal man, Rodney Naistus, was found frozen
to death in the same remote area.
Suspicion fell on the Saskatoon
police after a third aboriginal man, Darrel Night came forward
saying he had been abandoned by police in the same field, the
same weekend after being picked up while intoxicated.
Night was vindicated when two
constables, Dan Hatchen and Ken Munson, were eventually found
guilty of unlawful confinement and sentenced to jail for the
crime. Both were fired and are currently serving eight-month
sentences.
The Wegner death was investigated
by Saskatoon police before the file was handed to a major RCMP
task force created to look into all of the incidents and the
deaths of several other aboriginal men who had had some recent
contact with police.
Eighteen months later, the
unsolved Wegner file was handed to then Saskatchewan Justice
Minister Chris Axworthy, who later ordered a coroner's inquest.
During the inquest, two women
came forward for the first time saying they had seen Wegner being
forced into a police cruiser. The inquest was adjourned while
RCMP looked into the allegations and arranged to have a composite
sketch created based on the women's recollections.
Coroner Hugh Harradence ruled
the information inadmissible at the inquest and prohibited publication
of the sketch until recently.
Cline addressed the media Wednesday
to squelch a controversy that arose after he told the public
broadcaster the Wegner file would be "reinvestigated"
because of new information in their report.
However, RCMP have no intention
of reopening the investigation, RCMP spokesperson Heather Russell
responded Wednesday morning.
"Unless something significantly
new comes forward they feel they have covered the ground that
needs to be covered in this investigation," Russell said.
She later modified her statement
and agreed with the minister that the file had never been definitively
closed.
"It's never closed but
they did come to a point where there was nothing more that they
could think of to do. The terminology, 'closed' is probably not
a good word."
© Copyright 2003 The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon)
Verdict delivered at
Wegner inquest
Feb. 14, 2002, cbc
SASKATOON - A coroner's jury
in Saskatoon says it cannot determine the cause of Lawrence Wegner's
death.
Wegner's frozen body was found
on the outskirts of Saskatoon two years ago. He was wearing socks,
a T-shirt and jeans when he was discovered.
The inquest into his death
began in January. The jury heard from two women who testified
they saw Wegner being pushed into a police car the night he disappeared.
The jury deliberated for about
12 hours before delivering a decision. The verdict of "undetermined"
means the jury believes the cause of death can't be explained,
based on the information they heard.
Inquest in hands of jury:
Jurors must weigh conflicting testimony of Wegner's final hours
Lori Coolican Saskatoon
StarPhoenix, Feb. 13, 2002
Three men and three women on
a coroner's jury will begin this morning to try to unravel the
mystery of Lawrence Wegner's death, to conclude how he came to
rest in the wind and snow of a remote field near the Saskatoon
dump.
With hours of conflicting testimony
from a weeks-long inquest, a contaminated scene, and missing
pieces of evidence, it's not likely to be an easy job.
"You must not supplement
the evidence by speculating," presiding coroner Hugh Harradence
said in his hour-long instructions to the jury late Tuesday afternoon.
The jury is expected to begin several hours of deliberations
today.
Harradence suggested jurors
consider three main possibilities when deciding how Wegner met
his death: accident, non-culpable homicide, and undetermined.
The jury may also make recommendations on how to prevent similar
deaths in the future.
They cannot assign blame for
the death, and Harradence warned them about dealing too heavily
with the "broader issues of tension to police and the aboriginal
community," which have been a topic of controversy for more
than two years.
Several witnesses said they
spotted Wegner with city police officers on the last night his
friends saw him alive. Harradence told jurors that if they believe
this evidence they should ask themselves if it proves the police
took Wegner anywhere.
During his remarks to the jury
Harradence expressed doubts about the credibility of several
witnesses -- including two women who came forward recently to
testify they saw police put Wegner in a cruiser outside St. Paul's
Hospital.
The inquest heard "no
evidence of a dumping practice" by Saskatoon police, he
added.
The last evidence heard by
the jury came from Sgt. Kirke Hopkins, a lead investigator for
the RCMP. Wegner family lawyer Greg Curtis questioned him closely
on the Mounties' methods, telling reporters later the family
still has concerns about the ability of one police force to thoroughly
investigate another.
Hopkins said RCMP interviewed
all 40 Saskatoon police officers on shift in the city during
Wegner's last hours, and all denied having any contact with the
man. They were not asked to perform polygraphs on the officers
because there were no inconsistencies in their statements, he
told Curtis.
Former officers Dan Hatchen
and Ken Munson, convicted of leaving another aboriginal man on
the edge of town, were not interviewed because they were not
on shift at the time, he said.
"How do you know you got
everything?" Curtis asked.
Hopkins paused for several
seconds before replying, "We relied on the Saskatoon Police
Service. We asked them for the information we wanted and as far
as I know that's what we got."
Spectators have wondered for
weeks about what happened to the clothing Wegner was wearing
when his body was found. Saskatoon police did not seize the clothes
in the two weeks before their investigation of the death was
turned over to the RCMP.
Curtis told reporters the family
retrieved his T-shirt, jeans and socks from the hospital and
had washed them before RCMP showed up to ask for the clothing.
They turned over his jeans and T-shirt, as well as the white
socks he wore under another pair of grey ones. The family did
not turn over a pair of grey socks because they didn't know which
pair were the right ones, Curtis said.
After rooting through a box
of materials for the white socks, Hopkins reddened visibly in
court Tuesday.
"I'm sorry, I don't have
them with me," he said. "They're in Regina."
Neither the jeans nor the shirt,
on which witnesses reported seeing a spot of blood, were produced
at the inquest.
Wegner's former roommate, Brent
Ahenakew, testified earlier about strange cars lurking in his
neighbourhood following Wegner's death, and a phone call from
a man asking if he wanted to "end up like Lawrence."
RCMP were unable to trace the
call, Hopkins said.
During their own surveillance
of the area, the officer in charge reported what he thought was
"possible counter-surveillance" by a Saskatoon police
member in an unmarked cruiser over at least a two-day period.
Hopkins said Saskatoon police told them the officer was checking
for disqualified drivers. No further investigation was done.
Harradence ruled Tuesday that
a composite drawing of a police officer cannot be copied for
distribution to the public. It was prepared with help from one
of the two women who said she saw Wegner getting put into a police
cruiser.
The RCMP showed the drawing
to Saskatoon police Staff Sgt. Al Sather, who was in charge of
the officers on duty the night in question, and "he was
not able to assist in identifying a Saskatoon Police Service
member based on that sketch," Hopkins said.
Comparing the drawing to a
photo lineup of city police officers was considered, but the
idea was discarded because a warrant would be needed to seize
photos from the police personnel files, he said.
"Based on what I had,
I did not believe I had grounds for a warrant."
RCMP are not investigating
the identity of the officer depicted in the composite, he said.
"There's no criminal investigation being conducted into
Lawrence's death."
© Copyright2002 Saskatoon
StarPhoenix
911 problems cited at
Wegner inquest
sask cbc | Feb 4, 2002
SASKATOON - The jury at the
inquest into the death of Lawrence Wegner heard about serious
problems with Saskatoon's 911 system.
On the night Wegner went missing,
a woman called 911 about a man outside her house, wearing only
a t-shirt, jeans and socks.
The tape of that call was played
several times to the jury on Monday afternoon, however, several
parts were missing.
A police officer explained
there are numerous problems with the recording system, and that
causes blank spots on the tape.
The officer also said the night
Wegner disappeared was one of the busiest he'd ever worked.
Witness positive she
saw Wegner in police cruiser
Lori Coolican, Saskatoon
StarPhoenix, February 7, 2002
A woman who claims she saw
two police officers pushing a handcuffed and shoeless Lawrence
Wegner into the back of a cruiser in front of St. Paul's Hospital
appeared unruffled as she testified before the coroner's inquest
into his death.
"I came across a cop cruiser
with three people situated around it," she told the jury
Tuesday.
"They varied in height.
It appeared they'd handcuffed him, gave him a push to his lower
back, that's when I recognized it to be Lawrence Wegner, when
they were roughing him up."
The woman, who was acquainted
with Wegner, is expected to continue her testimony today. That
will be followed by testimony from her friend, who was in the
car with her.
They cannot be identified due
to a publication ban imposed by Hugh Harradence, the lawyer presiding
as coroner over the inquest. The reason for protecting their
identities is also subject to a publication ban until the hearing
concludes -- likely sometime this week.
The woman told the jury she
was driving her car, with the other woman as passenger, down
20th Street West on a cold night in late January two years ago
when she saw the officers detaining a slim aboriginal man with
a moustache, who was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt.
Wegner was last seen alive
early in the monring of Jan. 31, 2000. He was found frozen to
death in a field near the city dump and the Queen Elizabeth Power
Station three days later, wearing only a white T-shirt, jeans
and socks.
The discovery was made within
days of an incident in which former city police officers Dan
Hatchen and Ken Munson dropped another aboriginal man, Darrell
Night, from their cruiser in the same part of town and instructed
him to walk home. They were found guilty of forcible confinement
last year.
Rodney Naistus, another aboriginal
man, was found frozen in the same part of the city two days before
Wegner disappeared. No charges have been laid in either death.
The woman said she saw Wegner's
face clearly as one of the officers propelled him toward the
open rear passenger door of their cruiser. When they pushed his
head down and shoved him head first into the back seat, his legs
flew up, she testified.
"I saw a socked foot.
It was so clear, because the inside of the cop car was blue,"
said the witness.
The police car was parked near
the hospital exit, facing west at an angle that obstructed her
driving lane so that she had to go around it, she said.
She called her friend's attention
to it and both agreed it looked like Wegner, she added. When
she looked in her rearview mirror later, the interior light of
the car was no longer on, so she concluded they were all inside
the cruiser -- but she couldn't see if they pulled away from
the curb with him inside, the woman said.
She kept her cool through hours
of questioning and requestioning by lawyers representing the
coroner's office, the Wegner family, and the Saskatoon police
force, as well as Harradence and members of the jury.
The inquest, called after an
RCMP investigation resulted in no criminal charges, is not able
to assign blame for Wegner's death. The jury determines the cause
of death and can make preventative recommendations.
Lawyers pointed out some discrepancies
in the three statements the woman gave to RCMP investigators
since coming forward with her story two weeks ago, and her testimony
in court.
Some details came to her after
her initial statements to the RCMP were made, she said. Differences
in other details -- such as the type of vehicle she was driving
-- resulted from "honest mistakes," she said.
The woman's testimony differed
in places from that of Albert Chatsis, who testified earlier
that he saw police detain a man matching Wegner's description
in a different spot outside the hospital on the same night. Chatsis
said he later watched from Diefenbaker Park as a police car with
three people stopped near the power station.
Under questioning from Harradence,
the woman admitted she may not have seen the incident on a Sunday
-- the last day Wegner was seen alive. But she said the traffic
at the time, and the errand she was running with her friend,
make her fairly certain it was the last Sunday of the month.
The woman told the jury she
hesitated to come forward to tell the authorities what she saw
because she was afraid for herself and her children. She said
she knew there would be a lot of attention focused on her once
she told her story.
"I thought I'd have to
pack up and leave town," she said. "I just jumped to
conclusions and never thought to come forward. I was just plain
old scared."
She told the jury she eventually
felt compelled to come forward by her own conscience and the
friend who was in the car with her, because they knew that if
one of them spoke up, the other would have to do it as well.
"I do feel a whole lot
better . . . (now) that I actually told someone," she said.
Jurors returned to the train
bridge in Diefenbaker Park Tuesday night for a second look at
the view Chatsis claims to have had from across the river. This
time they were permitted to walk onto the bridge, where Chatsis
testified he was standing.
© Copyright2002 Saskatoon
StarPhoenix
- 'Parts missing' off
tape: cop
- Portions of Wegner call
not on tape, sergeant testifies
-
- Lori Coolican Saskatoon
StarPhoenix, Feb 5, 2002
The inquest into the freezing
death of Lawrence Wegner was further complicated Monday by the
possibility -- raised by a city police officer -- that portions
of a tape recording of a phone call from a potential witness
are "missing."
"There's parts of it missing,
in my opinion," testified Saskatoon police Sgt. Bruce Marsland,
who took the phone call from Jennifer Whitecap at 12:20 a.m.
on Jan. 31, 2000.
Whitecap may have been one
of the last people to see Wegner alive. She complained of a seemingly
drunk man wearing no shoes or jacket, who was outside the door
of her 20th Street West home claiming to be a pizza delivery
driver. Her next-door neighbour, Bev Urchenko, testified earlier
she heard the man, too.
Urchenko said she looked out
her window to see a marked police car, with two uniformed officers
and an agitated aboriginal man inside, parked outside Whitecap's
home. The officers drove away after a few minutes, with the man
still inside, she said.
Wegner was found frozen to
death in a field south of the city dump three days later, wearing
only a T-shirt, jeans and socks. The inquest, which is held to
determine the cause of death and make preventative recommendations,
was called after an RCMP investigation resulted in no criminal
charges.
Whitecap has already expressed
doubts about the tape, saying it does not contain a portion of
the conversation in which she was told there had already been
calls about the man in her yard.
Marsland seemed to agree. On
the tape, which was played repeatedly Monday for the coroner's
jury, he does not ask for her address -- though he tells her
he'll get officers to keep an eye out for the man she described.
"He'll probably be cold
by now," Marsland told Whitecap on the tape.
He would not have known her
address without asking because the call did not come in through
the 911 system, he testified. It would have been "stupid"
of him to make that offer without knowing what part of the city
she was calling from, Marsland added. "I believe the address
should be in there," he said.
The communications system used
by police has been subject to "numerous problems,"
resulting in pieces of phone calls, or sometimes entire calls,
getting lost, Marsland said.
No police record of any message
to "be on the lookout for" the man matching Wegner's
description -- a procedure known as a BOLF -- has ever been found.
Marsland said he may have decided
not to send out a BOLF if someone else told him the man had already
been picked up while he was talking to Whitecap, but he can't
remember if that happened.
"The city was going crazy
. . . it was just very, very busy that night," he said.
Greg Curtis, the lawyer representing
Wegner's family at the inquest, raised questions about an audible
"click" on the tape, between the end of a question
Marsland asked Whitecap, and her reply.
Marsland said he didn't know
if records kept by Saskatoon police are vulnerable to tampering.
"Are you sure you didn't
just miss the course on erasing tapes?" Curtis joked. Outside
the courthouse, he told reporters he may call technicians to
the stand regarding that issue later.
Lawyer Hugh Harradence, who
is presiding as coroner over the inquest, is expected to rule
this morning on whether or not two surprise witnesses, whose
new allegations put the inquest on hold last week, will take
the stand.
The two women, who were acquainted
with Wegner, prompted a re-opening of the RCMP investigation
after telling the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN)
they saw the 33-year-old social work student being loaded into
a police cruiser outside St. Paul's Hospital shortly after he
went missing.
© Copyright2002 Saskatoon
StarPhoenix
-
- Threat scares witness:
- Wegner's roommate says
he got ominous phone call after TV interview
Lori Coolican Saskatoon
StarPhoenix, January 17, 2002
The man who shared an apartment
with Lawrence Wegner for about a week before his disappearance
told a coroner's inquest he received a threatening phone call
shortly after speaking to the media about Wegner's death.
Brent Ahenakew, 22, shook visibly
and wiped away tears as he described the strange call that came
in as he arrived home from the CTV television interview he gave
a day after Wegner's body was found frozen in the snow near the
garbage dump in February 2000.
The interview had not yet been
broadcast.
The unfamiliar voice asked,
"So Brent, you hate police officers, eh? You want to end
up like Lawrence?" Ahenakew told a hushed Queen's Bench
courtroom late Wednesday.
Ahenakew said the caller hung
up before he had time to react. He testified that he tried to
report the call to a Saskatoon police sergeant, but nothing came
of it.
A few days later, Ahenakew
said, he started noticing police cars hanging around his apartment
on Avenue P South -- sometimes "creeping up" with their
lights off, and other times just sitting there idling for 15
minutes at a time.
Ahenakew's statements came
at the end of a long day filled with testimony from police officers
and two drug experts. The six-member jury, half aboriginal and
half white, is expected to continue hearing evidence for at least
another week.
Their role is to determine
how, when and where Wegner died and make recommendations on how
similar deaths might be prevented.
Wegner, a 30-year-old social
work student at the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College, was
found frozen in an open field on Feb. 3, 2000, just days after
another aboriginal man, Rodney Naistus, was found frozen near
a feed lot in the same part of town.
Ahenakew said that the night
Wegner disappeared he and his girlfriend had injected morphine
twice with Wegner and another man, and Wegner had smoked pot.
After Ahenakew began fighting with his girlfriend, Jennifer Heidel
-- prompting visits from the landlord and police -- Wegner left
to escape the tension, he said.
Ahenakew said he offered his
own parka and boots to his roommate and watched as Wegner left
in them. They were never returned. Wegner was found wearing only
a white T-shirt, jeans and socks.
Ahenakew, who had known Wegner
for eight years and frequently smoked marijuana with him, rejected
the idea that his friend would walk the five kilometres from
20th Street West to the place where he was found, especially
while sedated by various drugs and without proper clothing. He
said Wegner was acting normally despite the drugs he'd taken.
Barry Rossman, the lawyer representing
Saskatoon police, attacked Ahenakew's credibility, questioning
him about differences between his testimony and statements he
gave police. Ahenakew said his memories of that night consist
of "flashbacks" because of the drugs he'd taken, but
he feels they're accurate.
Wegner had been struggling
with schizophrenic symptoms for several years and was on four
prescribed medications -- an anti-depressant, an anti-anxiety
drug, an anti-psychotic and a drug to limit side-effects, his
psychiatrist Dr. David Keegan testified.
He'd been evicted from a group
home for breaking into a storage cabinet about a week prior to
his disappearance, and a decision was made to let him live with
Ahenakew despite some reservations, Keegan said.
Under questioning from the
family's lawyer Greg Curtis, he said it was unlikely Wegner could
have walked five kilometres in the cold, given the tranquilizing
drugs in his system.
RCMP toxicologist John Hudson
told the jury there was no alcohol in Wegner's system when he
died, but tests indicated he'd smoked marijuana within a few
hours of his death.
© Copyright 2002 Saskatoon
StarPhoenix
Witnesses establish scene
for Wegner jury
Lori Coolican, Saskatoon
StarPhoenix, January 15, 2002
A lone set of meandering footprints
and three telltale depressions in the snow were the only clues
presented Monday to suggest how Lawrence Wegner came to rest
in a lonely, wind-swept field near the Saskatoon dump nearly
two years ago.
What happened to him in the
three days before his poorly clad body was discovered -- days
in which no one seems to have seen him -- remained an open question
as a coroner's inquest into his death began at Court of Queen's
Bench.
"It looked to me like
he had laid down in the snow and rolled several times,"
Victor Hargraves, a GE Rail Cars manager, told Hugh Harradence,
a lawyer conducting the inquest for the coroner's office.
A six-member jury, half aboriginal
and half white, will spend the next week or more listening to
some 46 witnesses (including 17 current and former Saskatoon
police members) before deliberating on when, where and how Wegner
died.
The jury can also make recommendations
on ways to prevent similar deaths in the future, but they cannot
assign blame.
Wegner was last seen on the
night of Jan. 30, 2000, by Albert Chatsis, who has said he witnessed
police officers putting the 30-year-old man into a cruiser in
front of St. Paul's Hospital.
It was the same weekend two
local police officers left another aboriginal man, Darrell Night,
in the same part of town. Former constables Dan Hatchen and Ken
Munson were convicted of forcible confinement for that incident
last year.
It was also the same weekend
a third aboriginal man, Rodney Naistus, was found frozen to death
in the same part of town.
Hargraves drove city police
to Wegner's body after an employee of the company spotted it
from a distance on Feb. 3. The snow was considered too deep for
police cruisers at the time.
Over the ensuing hours, Saskatoon
police took over the scene, photographing the area and tracing
the footprints. The sub-zero temperatures had frozen his body
to the ground, face-down. Police needed portable heaters and
a makeshift tent to thaw the area before he could be moved.
Wegner's mother, brothers and
a sister-in-law watched quietly from the gallery Monday. His
father, Gary, stayed home on the Saulteaux First Nation near
North Battleford. They declined interview requests.
"They've had a couple
of years to sort of deal with the impact of their loss,"
said their lawyer, Greg Curtis. "They seem like quite a
tight-knit family and quite articulate about their views on things
and the world in general. But they don't have a great deal of
confidence in this particular process. We'll have to see whether
that lack of confidence is warranted or not."
Curtis questioned witnesses
closely about the lack of any accumulated snow around Wegner's
body, wondering how it could be so free of drifts after two nights
of high winds had started to obscure other tracks in the area.
© Copyright 2002 Saskatoon
StarPhoenix
|
Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
