Indigenous leader calls attacks headline ‘offensive’

THUNDER BAY — A newspaper in northern Ontario has apologized for a headline on a story about a police investigation into incidents where eggs were thrown from passing vehicles at two men believed to be Indigenous.

The headline in Thursday’s print edition of the Chronicle-Journal referred to the alleged attacks as “egg-toss incidents” that have left police in Thunder Bay, Ont., “scrambling,” prompting the Assembly of First Nations to demand an apology.

In a statement Thursday, the organization called the headline “offensive” and “insensitive,” particularly in a city plagued by reports of violence against Indigenous people.

The Chronicle-Journal’s frontpage apology Friday says the play on words was “inappropriate” for a story about an alleged criminal attack.

The story focused on a police investigation after two men reported they had eggs thrown at them from passing vehicles in two separate incidents on Wednesday. Police said Thursday one of the men, a 21-year-old, was taken to hospital by ambulance.

The incident comes a little more than a year after an Indigenous woman in the city was hit by a trailer hitch thrown by someone in a passing car. Barbara Kentner died of her injuries about six months later. On Jan. 29, 2017, Kentner was walking with her sister in a residential neighbourhood when someone yelled “I got one” after the 34year-old was hit. She required emergency surgery, but relatives said she never fully recovered.