Stonechild’s death exposed police abuse
Fourteen years after Neil Stonechild’s frozen body was found in a vacant lot in Saskatoon’s north industrial area in 1990, a commission of inquiry found the 17-year-old was last seen alive in the custody of two city constables and his body bore marks likely made by handcuffs.
Justice David Wright accepted the testimony of Jason Roy, who consistently recounted seeing his friend in the back of a police cruiser, with blood on his face, yelling, “They’re going to kill me.”
Wright found retired sergeant Keith Jarvis had closed the death investigation prematurely because he knew or suspected police involvement in the Saulteaux youth’s November 1990 disappearance and death.
Stonechild was unlawfully at large from a group home at the time. Three months after his death, his mother told the StarPhoenix she thought it would have been more thoroughly investigated if he had been the son of the mayor.
The matter was revisited in 2000, after Darrell Night complained two Saskatoon city police officers had abandoned him on a cold February night while he was intoxicated and inadequately dressed, near the Queen Elizabeth II Power Plant on the outskirts of town. They were subsequently convicted of unlawful confinement and fired from the police force.
Two other indigenous men, Rodney Naistus and Lawrence Wegner, were found frozen to death in the same area within the same week.
Their deaths and Night’s confirmed story led to the exposure of a practice loosely referred to as “starlight tours” and led to the 20132014 Stonechild inquiry.