Saskatoon Freezing Deaths

The Saskatoon freezing deaths involved Indigenous Canadians in and immediately outside Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in the 1990s and early 2000s, and are suspected of being linked to actions by the members of the Saskatoon Police Service (SPS). Police officers would arrest Indigenous people, who were usually male, for alleged drunkenness and/or disorderly behaviour, sometimes without cause. The officers would then drive them to the outskirts of the city at night during winter and abandon them, leaving them stranded in sub-zero temperatures.

The practice is known as taking Indigenous people on "starlight tours" and dates back to at least 1976.

Incidents

Among the First Nations victims who have died from hypothermia were Rodney Naistus, Lawrence Wegner and Neil Stonechild. Naistus and Wegner died in 2000, and their bodies were discovered on the outskirts of Saskatoon. Inquests in 2001 and 2002 into their deaths determined they were due to hypothermia. The inquest jury's recommendations all related to police policies and indigenous-police relations. Stonechild's body was found on November 29, 1990, in a field outside Saskatoon, which led to an ''Inquiry Into Matters Relating to the Death of Neil Stonechild.'' On the night of Stonechild's disappearance, five days prior on November 24, 1990, the temperature reached . The 2003 inquest could not determine the circumstances that led to his death.

In January 2000, Darrell Night was dropped off on the outskirts of Saskatoon but was able to call a taxi from the nearby Queen Elizabeth Power Station. The two police officers involved, constables Dan Hatchen and Ken Munson of the Saskatoon Police Service (SPS), claimed they had simply given Night a ride home and dropped him off at his own request, but were convicted of unlawful confinement in September 2001 and sentenced to eight months in prison. Yet investigations into the deaths of Wegner and Naistus were deemed "inconclusive."

The SPS initially insisted these were isolated incidents. However, in 2003, Police Chief Russell Sabo admitted that there was a possibility that the force had been dumping First Nations people outside the city for years, revealing that an SPS officer was disciplined in 1976 for taking an indigenous woman to the outskirts of the city and abandoning her there.

On April 21, 2018, Ken Thomas alleged that he was picked up by two SPS officers and dropped off outside city limits at night in the cold. This accusation was investigated by the Public Complaints Commission, which stated that it was unfounded. In a news release, Police Chief Troy Cooper said it was unlikely that there was contact between the SPS and Thomas on the night of the incident, based on video and audio recordings taken from police cars.

Censorship attempts

Between 2012 and 2016, the "Starlight Tours" section of the SPS's English Wikipedia article was deleted several times. An internal investigation revealed that two of the edits originated from a computer within the SPS. Alyson Edwards, a spokesperson for the force, denied that the removal of content was officially approved by the force. On March 31, 2016 the Saskatoon ''StarPhoenix'' reported that "Saskatoon police have confirmed that someone from inside the police department deleted references to 'Starlight tours' from the Wikipedia web page about the police force." According to the report, a "police spokeswoman acknowledged that the section on starlight tours had been deleted using a computer within the department, but said investigators were unable to pinpoint who did it." The spokeswoman stated that the SPS is working to "move forward with all of the positive work that has been done, and continues to be done that came out of the Stonechild inquiry."

In media

Film

These incidents have been addressed in two films. Darrell Night's experiences were documented in Tasha Hubbard's 2004 National Film Board of Canada documentary ''Two Worlds Colliding'', winner of the Canada Award. A fictional incident was also portrayed in the half-hour drama ''Out in the Cold'', directed by Colleen Murphy and starring Gordon Tootoosis.

Music

Canadian musician Kris Demeanor's song "One Shoe" was written about the Saskatoon freezing deaths, particularly Stonechild's.
The Wailin' Jennys' song "Starlight" was also inspired by the freezing deaths.

In 2017, Mi'kmaq artist Cathy Elliott completed a five-week workshop with students from Sheridan College for her musical ''Starlight Tour''. This work was commissioned by the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario in collaboration with Sheridan College's Canadian Music Theatre Project.

Podcasts

The freezing deaths are discussed in podcasts such as ''Criminal'' and ''Commons''.

See also

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References

Further reading

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External links

"In Depth: Aboriginal Canadians: Starlight Tours"
''CBC News''

"Final Report – Commission of Inquiry Into Matters Relating to the Death of Neil Stonechild"

"Conference confronts police ‘culture of oppression’"
''Aboriginal Multi-Media Society''

"Police Oversight"
''Justice Education Society and Centre for Education, Law, & Society at ''

{{discrimination against Indigenous peoples in Canada

conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia
crime in Saskatchewan
deaths from hypothermia
history of Saskatoon
police brutality in North America
police misconduct in Canada
violence against Indigenous people in Canada