CBC – Second degree murder charges have been reduced to manslaughter and aggravated assault against Brayden Bushby for the death of 34-year old Barbara Kentner. Bushby threw a trailer hitch from a moving car, yelling “I got one” after he hit the Indigenous women in the stomach. His originally scheduled judge and jury trial has been reduced to a jury only trial. “It is difficult for us to believe there is not a racial component to this decision,” Grand Council Treaty 3 Ogichidaa Francis Kavanaugh said in a news release on Friday. “For our people, it is easy to see that had the situation been reversed — had an Indigenous person struck and killed a non-Indigenous person — the accused would already be in jail facing a murder charge.”

The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry submitted their Final Report on June 3, 2019 labelling the ongoing violence against Indigenous people and especially women as “genocide”. Among their findings:

• Indigenous women and girls are 2.7 times more likely to experience violence than non-Indigenous women.
• Homicide rates for Indigenous women were nearly seven times higher than for non- Indigenous women.

The question to consider is “Why does a violent crime resulting in the death of an Indigenous women merit a reduction of a second degree murder charge to one of manslaughter?” If throwing a trailer hitch from a moving car at a person is not an “extreme reckless disregard for human life (LegalMatch)” then what is?