Episode 138: Starlight Tours

Apr 17, 2020

In January 2000, two bodies were found frozen in a remote area of Saskatoon, Canada. It was a place where nobody walked, especially in the winter. And then, a man came forward and said he had been dropped off by police on the outskirts of town, but he had made it back alive.

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we had a Spate of freezing deaths in the month of January 2000 over the space of a couple of weeks we would get these sort of sadly typical news releases from the city police that went along the lines of you know 28 year old person found Frozen these were the general circumstances we aren't naming them because it's not a violent death and that's just how they handled it

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Danza kreski is a reporter for the CBC in 2000 he worked for the Star Phoenix newspaper in Saskatoon Canada saw that particular month it was a The post-christmas Newsroom doldrums so I was assigned to take a look at one of these freezing deaths there was a body found out by the city landfill which is an sort of the Southwest section of the city it's a real relatively isolated for the city and I

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I was assigned to put together sort of a best practices story on you know don't get drunk and try to walk home and develop a little bit of a feature on the individual who was frozen to try to put a human face on it so I had begun to do my research and it started off by first of all trying to find out the individuals name and it turned out to be a fellow named Lawrence Wagner who was a social work student here in town and was reaching out to his family

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family and trying to find his background while I was in the process of researching that my city editor had gotten at the time what seemed like this absolutely improbable tip that City police had been dropping people off on the outside of town First Nations people

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Lawrence Wagner was the 30 year old First Nations member his body was found frozen to death on February 3rd but his Danza kreski learned he'd gone missing three days earlier Dan wanted to know who had last seen Lawrence Wagner he started knocking on doors and one of the doors that I knocked upon was a woman named Eliza White Cap and I knocked on her door way and I said you know I'd you heard anything about this

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the woman said that she did know Lawrence Wagner he was her nephew and she goes well as a matter of fact that night that he had gone missing that evening at freezing cold evening he had knocked on my door way and my daughter had answered it and he was clearly under the influence of some sort of intoxicant because he was basically in his shirt sleeves and jeans and he was yelling pizza pizza so I had called the police

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being Eliza and when she called the police they said the 9-1-1 operator told her that somebody else had already called about him and police had been dispatched so that was really the sort of terrible aha moment because I had a Clear Connection an involving the police and mr. Wagner he had come into contact with the police the night that he had died

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Lawrence Wagner was found in a remote industrial area by a power plant the place nobody walked especially in the winter and when Dan started looking into things he noticed that another freezing death had been reported in the same area a First Nations man named Rodney nastas had been found there on January 29th to men's bodies both frozen to death found in the same place in the same

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same week

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and then on February 4th a man came forward and said he'd been dropped off on the outskirts of town but he had made it back alive I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal

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Darrell night was the first Nations man he was 33 at the time Danza kreski says the Saskatoon police knew Darrow well he was getting picked up frequently by them intoxicated aggressive abusive would be put in a cruiser would be taken downtown spend the night and the drunk tank released the next day and then it was sort of shampoo rinse repeat

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in the early hours of January 28th dear all night had been at his uncle's apartment they'd fought and around Dawn two police officers found Daryl night outside the apartment intoxicated and yelling Darrell night later said the officers handcuffed him and put him in the backseat his account was he's put into the back of this Cruiser and he knows almost immediately that he's not being driven to the police station

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because it's the opposite direction and I recall speaking to him and he said the car got real quiet you know he he realized something was up I think he was you know concerned that I was just going to lead to a beating was he going to be shot he didn't know what was going on you know you're in this Cruiser and you think the crews are should be going north and it's going south and instead of heading towards the bright light so

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heading out into the darkness and you've got these two police officers in the front seat who aren't talking to you and they're just driving you it was a terrifying experience for him Daryl night leader said that the police drove him to a remote area and told him to get out of the car he told the police he thought he would freeze to death and according to Daryl night one of the officers said that's your problem and the police car drove away

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he later said I thought I was dead all those rumors I heard in the past they were all coming true when we first started reporting on this phenomena of what was happening I can remember a First Nations guy telling me it's just a Starlight tour

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and we'd heard you know versions of this in the past you know the idea being that police would pick a person up who was intoxicated they don't want to take him into the station because it involves a lot of paperwork this fellow's thrown in jail so they'll think I'll look instead of taking you into the police station on charging you will just take you somewhere and you can walk it off so it's kind of an Open Secret what's problematic is if you

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thing with somebody who's really intoxicated and it's 30 below and you take them somewhere they might not make it back so the scenario that was presented to us the tip was that police had in fact done this taken a person to the edge of town in really cold weather and dropped them off and they never made it back in when we're talking really cold weather in Saskatoon and January what temperature we

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talking it would be I guess you know simply for comparison purposes of 40 below which is you know 40 below Celsius and 40 below Fahrenheit are the same so 40 below freezing cold you can die you know if it's windy out you'll get frostbite on your face in a matter of minutes so this is full-on parka Parker whether yeah it's the type of weather where if you're not careful you can die whether you're intoxicated or

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so at this point the police was it the idea that the police most of the police department's just finding out that wait a second there are some officers have been doing this or was it oh no we've always known this and now everyone else knows it too I think within the service back in around 2000 it was a I think I would characterize it as a mature Police Service you know in the sense that the the average age of the officers and the years of

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science was a little bit older you know they ran their they did their business the way they did their business they weren't under a lot of scrutiny so just within the Police Service they were trying to figure out well who was working that night who is in that particular sector of the city is it conceivable that they would have dropped them off how widespread is this

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on February 7th two constables for the Saskatoon police force Dan hatchin and Ken Munson admitted that they had picked up Darrell night driven him to a remote area and left him there three days later they were suspended with pay

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and then the Saskatoon police chief announced he was ordering a homicide investigation into the deaths of Rodney nastas and Lawrence Wagner and another investigation into the claims made by Darrell night

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the Saskatchewan justice department called in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to take over the investigations Danza kreski remembers feeling like the whole thing was starting to explode I can remember driving home in my car and seeing police cars and being nervous thinking are they following me because I'm doing this story have we uncovered this this horrible practice that's been going on it was an awful experience and and

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and to think how far back did it go I mean even something as simple as simple as may be the wrong word but when I was doing the research on Lawrence Wagner you know trying to do the death by misadventure story going back on our files and finding out about Rodney nastas which had happened like right at the same time and I had just never connected the dots because it just seemed like another freezing death and then

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of a sudden you have to First Nations guys found Frozen right in the same area of town right on same weekend with Daryl night it was terrifying like it just seemed like we went from nothing to anything was possible

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is there any thought about how many people were taken on these Starlight tours my gosh once we broke the story the phone lines just lit up from people in the First Nations Community calling and not just with in Saskatoon from around the province saying oh yeah this happens all the time but nobody ever believed us when we told people you know were socially and economically disadvantaged First Nations people

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being taken out by the state by the representatives of the state you know who's going to believe us white reporters aren't going to believe us that was just sort of their world Danza kreski remembers that one day his colleague less Perot was going back through the newspapers archives looking for mentions of freezing deaths or First Nations men found in remote areas I remember vividly sitting at my desk in the Star Phoenix new

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Newsroom and lo and behold he got back to 1991 and I'm sitting there and he just sort of makes this noise of great surprise and I turn and look at him and he goes to meet Neil Stone Child and he turns around and holds up our scrapbook and there was the page one story on you know family concerned with teens a suspicious death

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and it was all there all the elements of the concerned families the disturbing set of facts were all there basically a decade earlier

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while the Saskatoon Police Service was under scrutiny there is one man inside the Police Service who is doing a sort of Investigation of his own and being an inordinate are you Kiddin very respectful of the cold and it and its power it's very powerful thing that it doesn't it just bugged me like how did this kid end up there and I thought well when I get back to work I'll find out what's going on this is Ernie looted at the time he was a

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Constable for the Saskatoon Police Service when you started with the Saskatoon police force how many First Nations officers were there there was to head me I was the third one

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so and and what percent would you say that was of the full force of one percent is what 350 officers I think when I started and it was the same pretty much across the board I think there's maybe 10 or 15 women at the time with SAS team police and I got hired there is one Asian Canadian there was one african-canadian and I think that was Boda it for us as rest of the guys were white guys lots of

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lots of farmers kids let's all hockey players and I chose to work in two places in Saskatoon and where the First Nation population was really high and just became an identifiable person you didn't have to like me if you but he knew who I was and that made such a difference so I end up pretty much sticking a patrol for my entire career

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Ernie looted was familiar with 17 year old Neal Stone Child and his 14 year old brother Jake they were both Sato First Nations members The Stone Child Brothers had had multiple run-ins with the police for petty theft drinking and breaking probation both boys had spent time in Youth detention centers

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Ernie found it very odd that Neil Stone Child would be found by himself in such a remote area wearing only one shoe when the temperatures were so far below freezing

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the local paper reported that his blood alcohol level was well above the legal limit and his cause of death was listed as hypothermia

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he was last seen five days before his body was found

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Ernie wanted to see what was in the Saskatoon police file which he wasn't supposed to be looking at because he wasn't a detective he looked it up anyway I went back to the police station and found a file number on the computer and against regulations had drills pull the fox I had no no involvement in it the girls from Central Records two ladies have sent records and they pulled it for me and I

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because it wasn't my file didn't want to be caught so reading a detective's file especially on a sudden death because you know sudden deaths and um sites were supposed to be really not not perused by patrolman because in case she had learned something you didn't you didn't weren't supposed to learn or whatever Journey made a photocopy of the file and took it home with him and I read this report it was about 26 or I can remember how many pages 27 wasn't buzzin very long

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most of it's just your initial responding officers and all stuff like that and I get to the investigation of it and it was concluded its investigators concluded that kneels down child had wandered

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I was going up to the Adult Correctional Center to turn himself in on some outstanding warrants yet and I knew right off the bat that I was that was ludicrous it was four when he was young offender in Canada young offenders 18 and under and they are they don't get housed at adult institutions so basically said that he was walking to the wrong facility to turn himself in and he froze to death basically that was the conclusion

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Ernie went to see Neal's mother Stella bignell the last time Stella had seen Neil was the night of November 24th five days later the police showed up at her door and told her his body had been found

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she told Ernie that she couldn't get any updates from the police and that she couldn't get anyone to give her back her son's belongings she felt like no one was listening to her

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Ernie says he made up his mind that he was going to try to help first he went to a staff sergeant he says that didn't go well he was told to speak with Sergeant Keith Jarvis Sergeant Jarvis had been with the Saskatoon Police Service for 24 years and he had been in charge of the investigation and to Neil Stone child's death he'd close the file and I went into Sergeant Services office and

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it went bad from the minute I walk through the door you could tell I was I was the last person he wanted to see what did you say when you walked in I said I have information about the death in Yellowstone child and he was instantly angry he you know he says what are you doing meddling this kind of thing and I went on for 45 minutes and basically told me I didn't know what I was talking about that I shouldn't be meddling in things I don't know anything about nothing I can remember about that meeting was even remotely good

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there is no thanks for bringing this information in you know we'll look into it blahblahblah nothing just 45 minutes later he knew what my concerns were he pretty much told me that keep my nose out of it that I did the things get out to me and and that's such an open statement right the things can happen to you and and when your coffee could be a lot of things so it could be you could be sidelined into a Front Desk position you

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it'd be you know who knows right anyway it was so I left there and I was I was incredibly frustrated I thought well you know there's no way they could not do something now I give him all the information I had you know whether it was hearsay or not it was still worthy of them having to look at it and there's I thought they've got they're gonna contact stellar

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and at least three openness or take a second harder look at our Lisa supervisor would but

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I went back and seen Stella my next shift and she said no one had been to see her at all and that nothing had changed

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and I said to her I said if I was a white kid I said earlier the son of the mayor said I'm sure this wouldn't be closed and you know whether you be treated better and I was it was just such to me it was such poor poor policing a few months after Neil Stone child's body was found the Star Phoenix ran a story with the headline family suspects Foul Play police say every Avenue investigated that was the article that Dan

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his colleague less Perot found a decade later when they were digging through the papers archives

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they decided to put Neil Stone Child back in the newspaper on the front page nearly 10 years after his death they put his picture and his story just above a story about the suspected role of Saskatoon police officers in the deaths of Rodney nastas and Lawrence Wagner

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inquest were just getting underway into those cases and juries would end up concluding that the men died of hypothermia but failed quote to determine the circumstances leading to the deaths

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in the case of Darryl night the man who had survived being dropped off by police in all white jury seven men and five women found constables Dan hatchin and Ken Munson guilty of unlawful confinement they were sentenced to eight months in a low security Correctional Facility

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with all this going on there was a lot of renewed interest in the circumstances surrounding Neil Stone child's death federal police started looking into it

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but there is a problem no one could find the police report from the initial investigation in 1990

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the file has been purged that was it was a rumor at first and I didn't pay attention to it because we were just there were so many rumors going around at the time so I heard that the file has been purged in a routine Purge of files 10 years or older and assisting Police Service when they were trying to free up space in our old police station so I got interviewed it a whole bunch of times because I but then they learned and I had information about it so I had my notes all the notes that I had and I showed it

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to them she won't tell them I got interviewed by the RCMP several times and all draining this while this was going on car sustained police became the kind of focus of the national attention in Canada and of course there is accusations of racism murder and all these things the RCMP is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Canada's federal law enforcement

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Ernie says he was willing to talk to them the case have been bothering him for years he remembered his conversations with Neil Stone child's mother and brother and remember thinking that something didn't seem right

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and then one day in 2001 Ernie was looking for something in his basement going through old boxes when he opened a box that he had an opened in 10 years and in which sitting there but a copy of the Neil Stone Child report

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you had forgotten that you saved it yeah I hadn't my Posse box OC's call our ticket box for so long and I took it out and I just brought it home and I put it in my box and it was the only report in existence and I called the RCMP guy right away and I called our deputy chief in this hostile Police Service and God gun in my truck drove downtown gave it to them and they photocopied it and what were you thinking were you thinking you know thank God I saved this or you thinking I'm going to get

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even more trouble now or yeah I thought I thought I was gonna be in trouble actually because I you know you weren't supposed to take reports for this one always bug me so I know I always kept it yeah you know I kind of felt Jeopardy there was a few times through this whole course all this I felt Jeopardy Dukes just for breaking the rules or whatever the case was but this one here I knew when I found a report that it was going to change things for for me

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he was going to change things for a lot of people but I was happy and one respect that I was trying to articulate with my concerns were that the RCMP and stuff like that and there it was in black and white reporter Danza kreski Journey was able to produce original documentary evidence that just sold how badly the Police Service it had screwed up that investigation he played an incredible part and he had an insight into how it

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and handled

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in February 2003 Saskatchewan's Justice Minister announced there would be an official inquiry into the death of Neil Stone Child the inquiry started in September there would be 43 days of testimony and 63 people would testify so a lot of work in the enquiry went into trying to establish or come up with a set of facts on what happened the evening that Neil Stone Child went missing and again this was

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you know happening at a time in the Police Service when we didn't have in-car cameras we didn't have GPS units in the cars so it was difficult to have kind of an objective standard of you know who was where and when according to the original investigative report the one that Ernie had photocopied and have been filed by Sergeant Jarvis back in 1990 no member of the police force had any contact with Neil stones

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child on the night of his death

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but during the inquiry Neal's friend Jason Roy testified that he'd seen Neil and a police car that night Jason said Neil had been yelling help me these guys are going to kill me

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Jason Roy testified he told Sergeant Jarvis about seeing Neil in a police car but none of this made it into the report several of Neil's family members testified that they'd seen gashes and bruises on Neil's face at the funeral and marks on his wrists

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any loot it testified for two days what did you say when you testified I was so I've I'm not gonna sugarcoat it was I soundly criticized this esteemed police and investigative procedures and and how you know how Neil Stone Child to death in particular was investigated I talked about the environment back then and and the way his death was investigated was

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was awful and the way his family was treated was awful

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Did anyone say you know your turn code or do you don't do that too

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I'd say

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most everybody that I worked with like my generation of officers were supportive all right some of the older cops were not but I don't want to paint all those guys with the same brush out there was a lot of good police officers back then it's just I hardly I suppose because where I was working I dealt with more of the ones that weren't

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but yeah I lost lost friends made friends even you know I think that self-preservation thing kicked in a lot of police just didn't want to talk about it right and and even years later like for me now they're still police officers the retired that's a tie he should quit talking about this Neil Stone Child thing right and and for a while you know I think woman are they right are they should I stop talk on

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and then I thought about it no it was an important story and at the end of the inquiry and kind of skip into a head here but at the end of the inquiry the Justice Wright who had overseen the inquiry released his report which five months after the inquiry ended and my wife and I were sitting at home and the provincial Minister was releasing it and and Justice right

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stated that he believed that to sustain police of constables had Neal Stone Child in their custody on the night that he died

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and it was shocking

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your stanza kreski they lost their jobs there was never enough evidence to lead to criminal charges but they were tagged as the guys who had for lack of a better expression killed Neal Stone Child and not everybody believed it you know the the Police Association that the chronology that was put together it was a tough set of facts all around but these fellows you know we look back on it they paid for

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sins of the Saskatoon Police Service in Neil Stone child's death

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I think the really damning part of The Stone Child inquiry though was when the family came forward how the investigation was just blown off there was no investigation and that became a real systemic issue

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Justice Wright called Sergeant Jarvis's investigation superficial and totally inadequate he made a series of recommendations to the Saskatoon Police Service they included in depth training about race and that the province quote establish an introductory program for Aboriginal candidates and candidates from Minority communities for police services

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do you think that the deaths would have been investigated earlier if it hadn't been First Nations people

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I don't know

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it's it doesn't

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you know probably have I'm hesitating because it doesn't speak well for media as well certainly within the First Nations Community there was a sense that all you're just waking up to this now was an eye-opener for a lot of people myself included

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I think this will be the first time that most people in the United States will have heard about this

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in June of 2003 then police chief Russell Sabo apologized on behalf of the Saskatoon police force he also said quote it's quite conceivable there were other times he said that in 1976 an officer was disciplined for driving a native woman to the outskirts of town and abandoning her there

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in 2016 Danza kreski was contacted by a college student trying to write a paper on the Saskatoon Police Service the student told Dan he couldn't find anything about the Starlight tours on the Saskatoon Police Services Wikipedia page and when he checked back he found out that it had actually been edited out apparently that's one of the features of Wikipedia as you can see the edits and he did some digging

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we verified this that the Starlight tours section had been edited out by somebody at the police station now what we were able to determine was the the police we're sort of caught dead to rights you know they acknowledge that yes the IP addresses as to where these edits were done Trace us back to the station but they were never able to determine who or where in the station happened there internet logs were wiped every 30 days

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days just because they the amount of traffic so they admitted that somebody in the station for whatever reason had decided to take that particular part of their history out and it was very embarrassing for them because you know you're 16 years past the the enquiry and all of that stuff and yet there was clearly still people within the station who just didn't want that to be known

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we contacted the Saskatoon Police Service for the story and received the following statement from the current police chief Troy Cooper

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all recommendations made his part of the inquiry into Neil Stone child's death were implemented by the Saskatoon Police Service there's been a great deal of change within the service over the last 16 years including training recruiting and relationship building with members of the indigenous Community we continue to look for ways to strengthen those relationships

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the majority of our officers currently serving were hired after the 2004 inquiry and after the changes were implemented our service supports calls for an independent oversight body

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criminal is created by Lawrence poor and me nydia Wilson is our senior producer Susanna Roberson is our assistant producer audio mix by raw buyers special thanks to Michelle Harris Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal you can see them at this is Criminal.com we're on Facebook and Twitter at criminal show Criminal is recorded in the studio

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