A look at Thunder Bay police’s conduct
Watchdog releasing report on handling of dead and missing Indigenous cases
Ontario’s police oversight body is releasing a long-awaited and “unprecedented” systemic review of the Thunder Bay police and its conduct investigating the deaths and missing persons cases of Indigenous people.
A final report of the review — first announced more than two years ago — is due to be released on Wednesday and will make 44 recommendations, the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) said Wednesday. The review involved more than two dozen trips to Thunder Bay, dozens of interviews and more than 80 meetings with numerous others, from Indigenous community leaders to the chief coroner of Ontario, said OIPRD director Gerry McNeilly.
“It’s very extensive, if not unprecedented, to take a look at a police service from this particular vision,” McNeilly said.
According to its terms of reference, the sweeping review looked at everything from the “over-policing” of Indigenous people in Thunder Bay to whether officers are being held accountable for non-compliance. The review also examined whether discrimination played a role in how police officers handled missing persons reports and suspicious deaths involving Indigenous people, and OIPRD investigators scrutinized 37 police cases dating back to 2009.
Among them were high-profile cases like that of Stacy DeBungee, an Indigenous man whose body was found in the McIntyre River in 2015, and the seven Indigenous high school students who died in Thunder Bay between 2000 and 2011. The OIPRD also reviewed investigations into the deaths of Tammy Keeash, 17, and Josiah Begg, 14, both of whom were found dead in Thunder Bay waters last year.
McNeilly declined to reveal the report’s specific findings or recommendations ahead of its release next week. But he said one of his primary concerns was to ensure racism-free policing in Thunder Bay.
“The Indigenous community, for many, many years, have been alleging there has been differential treatment and systemic racism in regards to the police dealing with them,” he said. “It was absolutely necessary to look into this matter because it was not going away.” Thunder Bay police have come under repeated criticism for their treatment of Indigenous people, and the OIPRD announcement comes on the heels of renewed outrage over a recent video that shows an Indigenous youth being struck by a Thunder Bay police officer while strapped to a stretcher.
The Thunder Bay probe is only the third time the OIPRD has ever conducted a systemic review, with the first two examining police conduct during the Toronto G20 summit in 2010 and OPP practices for DNA canvasses.
It is also just the latest effort to seek answers and accountability for the neglect and racist treatment of Indigenous people in Thunder Bay. McNeilly said he had been receiving complaints from Indigenous communities since the OIPRD began operations in 2009, but the impetus for launching the review was the death of DeBungee, a 41-year-old Rainy River First Nations man whose 2015 death was deemed “non-criminal” a mere 25 hours after his body was found in the McIntyre River.
DeBungee’s death was the focus of another investigation by the OIPRD, which released a scathing report in March that found the Thunder Bay police had failed to properly investigate his case and reached premature conclusions about how he died.
His body was also discovered in the midst of a coroner’s inquest into the deaths of seven Indigenous youth in Thunder Bay between 2000 and 2011. The seven youth, known as the “seven fallen feathers,” were between the ages of 15 and 21 and died hundreds of kilometres from their home communities, where their reserves lacked adequate high schools for them to attend. The inquest, which con- cluded in 2016, made 145 recommendations, including clean water for all First Nations reserves, schools in every First Nations community that wants one, and the ability for impoverished students to phone their parents while attending high school in Thunder Bay away from their communities.
In 2017, the Ontario Civilian Police Commission (OCPC) also announced an investigation into the Thunder Bay Police Services Board led by Senator Murray Sinclair, the respected former chair of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
The probe was triggered by “serious concerns about the state of civilian police oversight and public confidence in the delivery of police services in Thunder Bay,” according to the OCPC, an independent quasijudicial agency that provides oversight of police service boards.
A final report from the OCPC investigation was expected at the end of August 2018, but Sinclair requested an extension. When reached Wednesday, the OCPC said it anticipates the final report will be available on its website “shortly.”