Canada police hunt remaining suspect in stabbings
WELDON, Saskatchewan: Canadian police hunted for the remaining suspect in the fatal stabbing of 10 people in an Indigenous community and nearby town in the south-central province of Saskatchewan after finding the body of his brother amid a massive manhunt for the pair.
Damien Sanderson, 31, was found dead on Monday near the stabbing sites, and authorities believe his brother and fellow suspect, Myles Sanderson, 30, is injured, on the run and likely in the provincial capital Regina, police chief Evan Bray said. The series of stabbings also wounded 18 people.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Commanding Officer Assistant Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore said authorities were not sure of the cause of death yet, but the injuries were not self-inflicted.
Damien’s “body was located outdoors in a heavily grassed area in proximity to a house that was being examined. We can confirm he has visible injuries,” Blackmore said.
Asked if Myles was responsible for his brother’s death, she said police were investigating that possibility, but “we can’t say that definitively at this point in time.”
Leaders of the James Smith Cree Nation, where most of the stabbings took place, blamed the killings on the drug and alcohol abuse plaguing the community, which they said was a legacy of the colonization of Indigenous people.
James Smith Cree Nation resident Darryl Burns and his brother, Ivor Wayne Burns, said their sister, Gloria Lydia Burns, was a first responder who was killed while trying to respond to a call. Burns said his 62-year-old sister was on a crisis response team.
“She went on a call to a house, and she got caught up in the violence,” he said. “She was there to help. She was a hero.”
He blamed drugs and pointed to colonization for the rampant drug and alcohol use on reserves.
Ivor Wayne also blamed drugs for his sister’s death and said the suspects should not be hated.
“We have to forgive them, boys,” he said. “When you are doing hard drugs, when you are doing coke, and when you are doing heroin and crystal meth and those things, you are incapable of feeling. You stab somebody and you think it’s funny. You stab them again and you laugh.”
Blackmore said police were still determining the motive, but the leader of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations echoed suggestions the stabbings could be drug-related.
“This is the destruction we face when harmful illegal drugs invade our communities, and we demand all authorities to take direction from the chiefs and councils and their membership to create safer and healthier communities for our people,” Chief Bobby Cameron said.
Blackmore said the criminal record of Myles dates back years and includes violence. Last May, Saskatchewan Crime Stoppers issued a wanted list that included him, writing that he was “unlawfully at large.”
While authorities believe Myles is in Regina, about 335 kilometers (210 miles) south of where the stabbings happened, they have issued alerts in Canada’s three vast prairie provinces — which also include Manitoba and Alberta — and contacted United States border officials. The manhunt entered its third day on Tuesday.
The stabbings were among the deadliest mass killings in Canada, where such crimes are less common than in the US. The deadliest gun rampage in Canadian history happened in 2020, when a man disguised as a police officer shot people in their homes and set fires across the province of Nova Scotia, killing 22 people.
In 2019, a man used a van to kill 10 pedestrians in Toronto.