‘Deficiencies’ in probe of Indigenous man’s death

TORON TO • A decision by police officers in Thunder Bay, Ont., to rule out foul play just hours after the body of an Indigenous man was found floating in a river was the result of a grossly inadequate investigation tainted by racism, an independent review has determined.

In a scathing report released Monday, the Office of the Independent Police Review Director concluded several officers who investigated the 2015 death of Stacy DeBungee failed to live up to their professional obligations.

“The evidence is clear that an evidence- based, proper i nvestigation never took place,” the report states. “The real issue should have been whether anything pointed to foul play or suspicious circumstances after a proper investigation, not before.”

A passerby spotted DeBungee, 41, in the McIntyre River on the morning of Oct. 19, 2015. Within a few hours — well before any autopsy — police put out a statement calling the death non-suspicious.

Police chalked up DeBungee’s death to accidental drowning while drunk.

“The available evidence did not support the conclusion that foul play had been excluded,” the director’s report said. “This infected the entire approach to the minimal investigation.”

Among other things, the report notes, police took no video, photographs or measurements of the scene, and gave no thought to securing the area until an autopsy had been done. Apart from those initial deficiencies, the report finds the problems were compounded and exacerbated as time went on.

For example, investigators made no effort for five months to contact the last person to have been alone with DeBungee even though the witness’s name had been “red- flagged.” Detectives ignored a woman’s confession that she had been in a shoving match with DeBungee.

Officers were also unaware that DeBungee’s debit card was used after his death. They took no formal statements from anyone who was with DeBungee before his death, the report said.

DeBungee, of the Rainy River First Nation, was a “happy-go-lucky” guy, according to his brother. In an effort to get at what happened, the family hired a private investigator, the report said. He was able to piece together what the victim had done the day before his death and who he had been with. Police interviewed none of those people and refused to meet the investigator, the report said.

While officers involved denied race played any part in their investigation, the report concludes otherwise.

“It can reasonably be inferred that the investigating officers failed to treat or protect the deceased and his family equally and without discrimination based on the deceased’s Indigenous status,” the report concludes.

“The deficiencies in the investigation were so substantial — and deviated so significantly from what was required — as to provide reasonable and probable grounds to support an allegation of neglect of duty.”