‘We’re going to fight back,’ says mother of Colten Boushie
NORTH BATTLEFORD, Sask. — The emotion was raw at a rally in North Battleford, Sask., on Saturday as the mother of a young Indigenous man shot and killed by a white farmer lashed out at the justice system and vowed First Nations people will “fight back.”
More than 100 people, carrying signs that read Indigenous Lives Matter and Justice for Colten, gathered in front of the courthouse in one of several protests across the country called in the wake of a jury finding Gerald Stanley not guilty in the shooting death of Colten Boushie.
“The justice system needs to stop locking up our youths. All of our loved ones are in jail. White people — they run the court system. Enough. We’re going to fight back,” said a visibly upset Debbie Baptiste, the young man’s mother.
“They’re not sweeping us under the carpet. Enough killing our people. We fight back. Go to hell, Gerald Stanley. That’s where you belong.”
The defence in the Stanley case said his gun accidentally went off, killing Boushie with a single shot to the back of the head in a “freak accident.”
“That ain’t no freak accident,” said Baptiste. “Gerald Stanley is a freak accident.”
Alvin Baptiste, Colten’s uncle, said it has been a difficult time for the family, but called the rallies a good start toward changing the system.
“I want to take this all the way to Ottawa ... right to Justin Trudeau,” he said. “Indigenous people have never received justice throughout Canada. This is white-privileged justice that has happened to my family. A whitewash.”
Baptiste said he had a meeting scheduled with Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe in Saskatoon Saturday, but he also wants to sit down with Trudeau.
The prime minister tweeted Friday night that he had spoken to federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould about the case.
“I can’t imagine the grief and sorrow the Boushie family is feeling tonight,” he wrote from Los Angeles. “Sending love to them from the U.S.”
The head of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations said the Boushie family will be able to sit down with the justice minister in the near future.