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lawyer Don Worme tells Toronto reporter the Saskatoon Police
have lost the files on Neil Stonechild. The StarPhoenix picked
up the story, Destruction of police file outrages Stonechild
lawyer April 18. | injusticebusters' coverage of the events of winter, 1999 | Frozen
Ghosts, from Saturday Night summer 20000
New probe of native deaths:
Private eyes to investigate Saskatoon police
By MIKE D'AMOUR -- Sun Media,
April 16, 2000
SASKATOON -- A pair of private eyes hired by the
Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations will have to wait for
RCMP files regarding the deaths of five native men.
"We don't disclose the
results of our investigations," said RCMP Sgt. Rick Wychreschuk.
"Disclosure will come through the court process, after that
everyone has access to the information."
A Saskatchewan RCMP task force
of 15 to 20 investigators has been in Saskatoon investigating
the deaths along with allegations police routinely dumped native
men outside of town in sub-zero temperatures.
The practice came to light
after the RCMP completed a probe into allegations by Darrell
Night that two Saskatoon police officers abandoned him on the
outskirts of the city on Jan. 28.
Night, 33, complained two officers
drove him to the same area where two dead men were later found.
The partially clothed frozen
body of Rodney Naistus, 25, of Onion Lake, Sask., was discovered
Jan. 29. On Feb. 3, the frozen body of Lawrence Kim Wegner, a
30-year-old Saskatchewan Indian Federated College student, was
discovered in the same area.
The two officers involved in
Night's allegations, constables Dan Hatchen and Ken Munson, were
charged last week with assault and unlawful confinement.
They are to appear in court
May 3 and have yet to make a plea.
They were originally suspended
by the police service for 30 days without pay after Night complained
he was dumped.
The Saskatoon Police Commission
imposed an extra 60-day suspension without pay, a penalty the
cops fought.
The commission announced Friday
the two men will receive back pay from the time they were suspended
last month until they were charged.
The commission must meet again
to decide if they will continue being paid.
Soon after the RCMP took over
the investigation, they set up a 1-800 number for others who
believed they had been victimized.
"In all, we received more
than 180 calls, 25 of those were complaints against the RCMP
and three complaints dealt with abandonment," Wychreschuk
said, adding one complaint went back 20 years.
Meanwhile, the private investigators
-- one an ex-RCMP officer -- hired by the Federation of Saskatchewan
Indian Nations began their investigation last week by examining
the claims of more than 200 aboriginal people from across the
province who told the organization they had been mistreated by
police.
 MYSTERIOUS
DEATH
"These are people who
have reported it to us and is separate from what's been reported
to Saskatoon police or the RCMP," said Darcy McKenzie of
the FSIN. (right)
The lawyer representing Night
said he hopes that investigation will focus on the mysterious
death of another young native.
Neil Stonechild, 17, died in
November 1990.
"His death was even more
suspicious, if you can imagine that," said Night's lawyer
Donald Worme.
"He was found frozen to
death at the north end of the city with no jacket and only one
shoe, and the last person to see him alive had him in police
custody."
Stonechild was apparently on
the lam when he died, Worme said.
"He escaped from a group
home and he's the one the police had suggested by way of explanation
in their apparent investigation that he was going to the correctional
centre to turn himself in," Worme said.
The file has since disappeared,
Worme said.
"It was destroyed in 1999
by the city police" against Saskatoon Police Service regulations,
he said.
Since the highly publicized
story of Night's alleged ordeal, others have sought Worme out.
"Scores of people have
come forward to me with similar complaints and have retained
me as their counsel," the lawyer said.
Destruction
of police file outrages Stonechild lawyer
Police viewed case as closed,
file purged from system: official
By Jason Warick, SP April
18, 2000
Saskatoon police have destroyed
most of the information in the file of a Native teenager who
froze to death in the north side of the city in 1990, leaving
the RCMP with only a fraction of the original information to
investigate the incident.
"The are some questions
about the destruction (of the files)," Don Worme, a lawyer
involved in the case said.
"Given the seriousness
of the issues at hand, it would have been prudent to maintain
the files."
Neil Stonechild was found dead
in November 1990. A friend says Stonechild, drunk and causing
a disturbance, was driven away by Saskatoon police the night
he disappeared.
Two Saskatoon police officers
have been charged with unlawful confinement and assault in connection
with the alleged dumping of Darrell Night, another Native man,
outside the city near the Queen Elizabeth II power plant.
The RCMP investigation which
led to those charges is also looking into the Stonechild case
and the cases of two Native men who froze to death this winter
near the power plant.
Stella Bignell, Stonechild's
mother, spoke out in 1990 and again this year about suspicions
she had about her son's death. At the time she wondered how her
son ended up in the northern industrial area of Saskatoon wearing
only one shoe on a -28 C night.
Saskatoon Police Service Staff
Sgt. Glenn Thomson said the Stonechild death was thoroughly investigated,
deemed accidental and the file was closed.
Thomson said after seven years,
files on closed cases such as Stonechild's can be discarded.
His file was likely part of a regular purge of closed files,
Thomson said.
"We can't physically keep
all of that stuff," Thomson said.
But Worme said Saskatoon police
should not have destroyed the file.
There were many unanswered
questions about Stonechild's death, and unsolved or open cases
have to be kept for at least 10 years, according to provincial
laws.
Worme noted the file was destroyed
after only nine years had passed.
When Worme asked for the file,
the response from police "was neither timely nor satisfactory."
Police simply confirmed they had destroyed Stonechild's file
in December, but they would not give reasons why, he said.
Thomson said the other alleged
incidents of dumping didn't occur until January and February,
well after the Stonechild file had already been destroyed.
RCMP Sgt. Rick Wychreschuk
said even though the file was destroyed, Saskatoon Police Service
provided an electronic record with a list of the names of people
involved in the investigation.
"It doesn't have the actual
statements. We just have to go back and interview (those involved),"
Wychreschuk said.
"Certainly it would have
been easier to look at the first statement, but we don't have
the advantage of that. We believe, though, that we can still
go back and investigate the thing very well."
Wychreschuk said he isn't sure
when any of the pending investigations will be completed.
index to Saskatchewan police dumping
scandal
 August 19: Frozen Ghosts: Saturday Night magazine
feature
- May 11: City
police owe explanations for recent 'policies', Les MacPherson
column, May 11, 2000
- May 10: Zoorkan
off the hook for 'Rambo-type' inquiry: Chief rules no discipline
needed, despite judge's comment
- April 16: New probe of
native deaths: Private eyes to investigate Saskatoon police
(Toronto Sun)
- April 11: Munson
and Hatchen charged | April 14: Hatchen
and Munson to get Paid
- March 23:
Superintendent
Dueck is back in the news, this time for threatening a citizen
- March 22: FSIN hires shadow
investigators
- Mar. 21: Task
force wraps up Night investigation: Justice Department to decide
on charges
- Mar. 10: Saskatoon
Police Association Weighs in | Natives
step forward to challenge authorities
- Mar. 3: Chris Axworthy, Minister of Justice
, promises the Native leaders a referral to the Feds for ways
to keep Natives out of jail. Was that the issue? We thought the
protest was about sadistic cops driving drunks to the edge of
town in sub-zero weather. On television he calls the murders
"Death by hypothermia." Jail
alternatives key to justice system overhaul: Axworthy
- Feb. 26, 2000: The infamous "Blue Lagoon
Column": In 1997 column,
Saskatoon officer described tough treatment of drunks
- Feb. 23, 2000: Stonechild
case closed: RCMP refuses to add 1990 Native death to its investigation
of suspicious deaths | Police
department racist: worker: Metis woman complains to human rights
commission about employer's 'poisoned' work environmen
- Feb. 22, 2000: Decade-old
death resurfaces | RCMP seek
help finding man last seen with Naistus | Axworthy
refuses to call public inquiry
- Feb. 18, 2000 :Dueck
public spokesman for police excuse that they drive drunks out
of town because we don't have enough detox centres! | Witness recalls
Native man struggling with police : Man who sparked internal
probe tells horror story | Large
crowd attends candlelight vigil | Commission
left in dark, Maddin says : Mayor doing poor job at providing
information to members: councillor | Cop
confronts racism charge : Suspended Saskatoon police officers
identified
- Feb. 17, 2000: Police
chief under siege: Dave Scott reverses stance, calls for outside
investigation
| Retracing
Rodney Naistus's footsteps up to the day he died | Dayday
backs outside probe of deaths :Seriousness of allegations against
police officers warrants outside investigation | StarPhoenix
editorial: Chief's request only real option | Saskatoon
under microscope :Man who sparked internal probe tells horror
story | Globe and Mail
Report by Dave Roberts |
Feb. 16, 2000 : City
cops suspended: Police chief orders homicide investigation after
Native men discovered frozen to death | Native leaders demand independent public inquiry
We stopped updating this index and created a
Saskatoon Police stories index
page
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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
