Thursday, March 18, 2004

Sometimes I am so ashamed

CNEWS - Canada: Saskatoon police officer says he knows nothing about teen's frozen death
The Stonechild inquiry has been going on for several months now, off and on. And as the testimony has come out day after day, I don't think there is anyone now who doesn't believe that officers of the Saskatoon police drove this 17-year-old drunken, abusive, screaming Aboriginal boy out of the city and left him in a field on that night a decade ago, where he froze to death.
They may never be able to put a court case together -- the RCMP tried for a year before this, and there doesn't seem to be enough clear-cut evidence anymore for a jury to find anyone guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
But the testimony at the inquiry has convicted them nonetheless -- too many lies, too much wilful incompetence, too many notebooks missing, too many files empty, too much "we never discussed it", too much "I can't remember", day after day whenever the police testified, from the deputy chief on down.
Sometimes I am ashamed of my city.

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