quote:
Manitoba native chiefs are calling for a public inquiry into the Winnipeg Police Service in the wake of the police shooting that killed Craig McDougall over the weekend.McDougall, 26, was shot by officers who responded to a disturbance call around 5 a.m. Saturday at a house on Simcoe Street, in the city's West End neighbourhood. Police said he had refused repeated demands to drop a knife. ...
One witness at the news conference insisted there had been no knife, and several others said McDougall posed no danger to police because he had been on one side of a metre-high fence, while the officers were on the other.
"When I saw my son lying on the ground, I wanted to go to him to help him, but I was thrown on the ground and handcuffed," the slain man's father, Brian McDougall, said in a statement read by another family member. ...
McDougall's uncle was J.J. Harper, a 37-year-old native leader who was killed by police in March 1988 after he was stopped by officers who mistook him for a suspect in a car theft.
Harper's death sparked outrage in the aboriginal community, and prompted an inquiry into the provincial justice system's treatment of aboriginal people.
Nothing has changed in 20 years. Racism against Aboriginal people - starting with the police forces and other state institutions - is as rampant as it was when I grew up on the Prairies.