Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak’s Grand Chief Garrison Settee is urging law enforcement services across the country to work with Indigenous leaders to eliminate systemic discrimination that exists within police forces.

 

This comes after a number of reports of Indigenous people who are experiencing violence and death as a result of their interactions with police officers.

 

Settee lists the deaths of three Indigenous people who died due to police shootings in Winnipeg, as well as the death of Chantel Moore, who was killed by a New Brunswick police officer during a wellness check.

 

He adds other recent incidents include an Inuk man who was knocked over by an RCMP vehicle in Nunavut and a Chief of a northern Alberta First Nation who spoke about his experience with police due to having expired tags on his license plate.

 

Settee explains that police brutality is not new, and that most people simply have a mobile phone to record these incidents.

 

He goes on to say that it citizens shouldn’t have to be required to record interactions with police, and all levels of government should work together to end police brutality and violence against Indigenous people.