Winnipeg Free Press: The death of Tammy Bateman, an unhoused Indigenous woman run over by Winnipeg police, is a horrific event — one that has negatively impacted and traumatized people who are already among the most marginalized and oppressed in our society.

In addition to the many questions it raises about police actions — driving at night down a walking path where homeless people are known to be present — it also raises significant questions about police oversight and accountability bodies and investigative processes.

These are questions also about justice for Indigenous people in Canada — or more to the point, a lack of justice.

These questions are especially pressing when it comes to police violence against Indigenous people, particularly in terms of police killings.

It has long been recognized that Indigenous people are disproportionately the victims of lethal police force. A 2020 analysis showed that between 2017 and 2020, an Indigenous person in Canada was more than 10 times more likely to have been shot and killed by a police officer than a white person.

Of the 66 people shot and killed by police between 2017 and 2020, for whom race or heritage was identified, 25 were Indigenous, representing almost 40 per cent of the total number. This disparity is also shown in overall data for police-involved deaths in Canada. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association recently reported that while Indigenous people make up 5.1 per cent of people living in Canada, they represent 16.2 per cent of people killed in police involved deaths.

Because there is no formal standardized database of police-involved deaths in Canada, we cannot even access the numbers of unhoused people killed by police. My own documentation research finds at least a dozen cases in which homeless people were killed in police encounters.

There is also the issue of oversight and accountability, which often retraumatizes victims’ families while leaving them with a sense of justice denied. Between 2000 and 2017, of the hundreds of encounters where a police officer killed a civilian in Canada, less than four per cent resulted in charges and out of the 18 charges laid, only two resulted in convictions.

A 2020 report found that across Canada, charges were laid or forwarded to Crown prosecutors for consideration in only three to nine per cent of the cases undertaken by the provincial agencies.

The situation is no better in Manitoba. The Independent Investigations Unit of Manitoba (IIU) reveals in its 2022-2023 Annual Report that it started 49 investigations in that period and concluded 42 — with only 13 charges laid against eight officers and one former officer. None of the cases that resulted in charges being laid were those in which there was a police-involved death.

I have sat with family members of Indigenous people killed by police as they received the shattering news that no charges would be recommended against the officers who killed their loved ones by the IIU or that Crown had chosen not to pursue charges even in rare cases where they were recommended.

In each case they have expressed dismay and anger that police oversight processes have reproduced colonial structures that exclude, silence or marginalize Indigenous cultural practices and priorities.

This is so even in cases, as in British Columbia, where the oversight agencies have an Indigenous liaison. Families have found this position to be detached, even superficial, with someone not from their lands or Nations being asked to “stand in” for all Indigenous people.

The problems with police oversight are well documented. Many investigators within these civilian organizations are former police officers themselves. A Canadian Press review found that of the 167 members involved in these units, 111 are former police officers. Most are white men.

Another problem is that police officers are not required to co-operate fully with investigations and are not even required to turn over their notes in all cases.

In B.C., a coalition of groups calling for justice for Indigenous people killed by police sent a letter to the provincial government calling for a series of recommendations.

In terms of police oversight, they issued these demands: “Appoint an Indigenous civilian monitor, or a separate board of Indigenous civilian monitors, to oversee each investigation where an Indigenous person is identified as a victim or affected party in an incident of death, serious harm, or reportable injury. Recruit Black and Indigenous investigators with knowledge of the lived experiences of these racialized communities.”

The shocking death of Tammy Bateman has become a flashpoint for these interlocking concerns. It is mobilizing community to raise calls for change. Some have already made demands for an Indigenous advisory council appointed to the IIU, and Indigenous investigators. May their voices be heard this time — and listened to.

Of course, many stress that the only way to reduce police violence is to stop the policing that disproportionately burdens Indigenous, racialized and poor and unhoused people.

It means focusing on alternatives, in housing, health care, harm reduction, etc., that offer care instead of cops.

By Jeff Shantz

Jeff Shantz is a full-time faculty member in the department of criminology at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey, B.C.