Saskatoon no ‘hotbed’ of missing women: chief
Saskatoon police Chief Clive Weighill says cases of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls cannot be solved by police alone.
“This is a big social systemic issue. We have to stop treating this as a crime issue,” Weighill said Monday.
His comments come as Saskatoon’s police board prepares to discuss the department’s efforts on missing-persons cases — specifically cases involving indigenous women.
A report on the agenda for the next police board meeting shows that out of 13 missing-persons cases in Saskatchewan dating back to 1953 that are still considered “active” and under investigation by the city police major crimes unit, only two involve aboriginal women.
“There is a misconception that we’ve been a hotbed,” Weighill said.
The police department has revamped its policy on missing-persons cases in recent years and now more officers work such cases, he added.
The majority of Saskatoon’s cases involve habitual runaways, so the department works hard to “triage” cases — making sure that the more serious ones are passed on to to investigative units like major crimes, Weighill said.
When someone vanishes under mysterious circumstances without a trace, it’s important to get a serious investigation underway quickly, he added.
Weighill said the entire policy — from the procedure officers follow when dealing with new missingpersons cases to how officers connect with family members — is revamped.
“I believe we are one of the leading agencies in Canada when it comes to these cases,” Weighill said.
Darlene Okemaysim-Sicotte, a member of Women Walking Together — a grassroots organization supporting families of missing and murdered women — said police still have work to do.
Many of the victims’ families have negative experiences when dealing with police, she said.
“I don’t discount all the positive things they are saying, but Saskatoon Police Service has a very good (public relations) system going on their behalf,” Okemaysim-Sicotte said.
That public relations system and the information distributed by police can often overshadow the negative experiences people have, she said.
In 1992, her cousin’s daughter, 16-year-old Shelley Napope, was murdered by serial killer John Crawford. Family members reported Napope missing 30 times before her body was found.
The system has changed since then, but Okemaysim-Sicotte said police need to make sure they are working with the whole family so people don’t get left out. Often, the one designated family member who is assigned to speak with police can become fatigued and as a result other family members are left out of the loop, she said.
Police need a more comprehensive strategy for reporting missingpersons cases to the media, she added.
“When we are looking at the vulnerability of indigenous women, it would strike me as a systemic issue rather than a crime issue,” he said.