A group representing families impacted by police violence in Winnipeg is calling on the Manitoba government to overhaul to the way complaints against police are handled in the province.
Dozens attended a community meeting hosted by the Coalition of Families Affected by Police Violence Saturday afternoon.
The group, made up of family members and their supporters, is calling on the province to address systemic racism in the Winnipeg Police Service, which it says has been a known problem for decades.
“This is not about one bad officer,” Brian Wood told the crowd. “This is about an entire system that has been failing us for generations. Today, I’m calling for action, not sympathy.”
He is the father of James Wood, who died in late January after being restrained by police responding to a call about an intoxicated man at an apartment complex in Winnipeg’s Crestview neighbourhood.
Several witnesses told CBC News police used excessive force in the encounter, beating the 35-year-old with a baton and Tasering him.
A probe into his death by the province’s police watchdog, the Independent Investigation Unit, is still ongoing.
“There is no justification for my son to lose his life due to police conduct,” Brian Wood told CBC on Saturday.
“We’re not anti-police.… [But] the Indigenous and visible minority deaths that’s been happening in Winnipeg — that needs to stop.”
Open letter to premier, justice minister
An open letter addressed to Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew and Justice Minister Matt Wiebe, posted online by the Coalition of Families Affected by Police Violence earlier in the week, had gathered more than a hundred signatures by Saturday.
“This issue requires immediate attention and redress in Winnipeg,” the letter reads, mentioning a recent series of incidents across Canada in which six First Nations were killed by police.
The deaths — which happened within a 15-day span — include Tammy Bateman, who was struck by a police cruiser in Winnipeg’s Fort Rouge Park on Sept. 5.
Among the signatories to the open letter are several legal scholars and leaders from some First Nation communities, as well as the relatives of Adrian Lacquette.
Adrian Lacquette was fatally shot by Winnipeg police in 2017, when he pointed a gun at police after he’d gotten out of a stolen SUV.
The 23-year-old suffered at least nine gunshot wounds. It was later determined he’d been carrying a replica firearm, and was under the influence of cocaine, oxycodone and alcohol.
The Independent Investigation Unit ruled the shooting “justified and unavoidable” in 2018.
‘A systemic issue’
In Manitoba, individuals can file a complaint about the conduct of a municipal police officer to the Law Enforcement Review Agency, or LERA.
But the coalition is calling on the province to create a body that can investigate public complaints about the system as a whole, not just complaints about individual officers.
“This sort of thing exists in other provinces and we believe that it must exist here,” said Meaghan Daniel, the coalition’s legal counsel.
“It comes down to the fact that systemic racism can only be addressed — a systemic issue — with a systemic scope, procedure to make systemic remedies.”
Daniel represented the family of Ashley Smith at the inquest looking into the death of the Indigenous teen at an Ontario prison in 2007, as well as the Nishnawbe Aski Nation in an inquest into the deaths of seven First Nations youth in Thunder Bay, Ont.
During Saturday’s meeting, the lawyer said that instead of asking for further “one-off” inquiries into police-related deaths, the coalition hopes to create an ongoing strategic path for police oversight.
“What we’re asking for is actually quite simple,” she told CBC News.
“We just need the power to look at the problem where it exists, rather than getting distracted with these one-off discipline processes.”
New police chief could make ‘desperately needed’ changes
The group is also looking for reforms to the Fatal Inquiries Act, to ensure the inquiries provide meaningful recommendations, saying the current inquest system for state-involved deaths is not fulfilling its purpose of preventing future incidents.
CBC News has reached out to the province for comment.
The meeting comes as the city is looking for a new police chief to replace Danny Smyth, who officially retired earlier this month.
Hilda Anderson-Pyrz, a community advocate and James Wood’s aunt, said the relationship between Indigenous people and police has soured in recent years, and the next chief shouldn’t be afraid to make the systemic changes that “are desperately needed.”
“There’s a big fear within the Indigenous community of policing,” she said. “It’s real, because we see the outcomes repeatedly.… There has to be transformative change.”
Two members of the Winnipeg police board — Diane Resdky and Damon Johnston — also attended the meeting Saturday.