Watchdog launches probe into farm death RCMP investigation

A police watchdog has launched a probe into the RCMP’s investigation into the shooting death of an Indigenous man on a Saskatchewan farm.

The Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP says it is looking into how the RCMP handled the death of 22-year-old Colten Boushie.

Boushie, a member of the Red Pheasant First Nation, died in 2016 when the SUV he was in drove on to a farm near Biggar, Sask.

Last month, a jury acquitted 56-year-old Gerald Stanley.

Boushie’s family had been calling for a review of the RCMP investigation. Boushie’s mother has said that when RCMP came to notify her about her son’s death, officers were insensitive, started searching her home without permission and asked her if she’d been drinking.

An internal RCMP investigation, done by a senior Indigenous officer, absolved the police force.

The commission will also review and investigate the RCMP’s dismissal of the Boushie family’s initial public complaint.

“In the course of our review and our ongoing monitoring of events related to this tragic incident, it has become apparent that additional matters related to the conduct of RCMP members involved need to be examined,” the commission’s acting chairperson, Guy Bujold, said in a release Tuesday. “As such, I am satisfied that it is in the public interest to launch an independent investigation into this matter.”