[2] According to the Yellowhead Institute, an Indigenous-focused research organization within the Faculty of Arts at Toronto Metropolitan University, police brutality in Canada is a result of structural racism and colonization.
[3] Data from the 2020 General Social Survey reveals that only 52% of Indigenous Canadians age 15 and older reported that they were confident in the police force.
[5] For reference, among non-Indigenous, non-visible minority respondents who reported instances of discrimination in the same period, only 4% indicated this occurred during interactions with the police.
During this time period, nine women either went missing or were found murdered along a 724-kilometer stretch of Highway 16 in British Columbia, Canada, eight of whom were Indigenous Canadians.
One of the more publicized incidents occurred in November 1990, the body of Neil Stonechild, a Saulteaux First Nations teenage boy, was discovered in a field outside of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
[20] A follow-up letter was sent on January 23, 2020, detailing two occurrences of strip searching performed on Inuit women by the Nunavut RCMP.
[20] According to the second letter sent to Michelaine Lahaie, the woman was overpowered by three male RCMP officers and stripped against her will while being pressed face-down onto the floor of her holding cell.
[21] The Legal Services Board of Nunavut alleges that the RCMP officers who performed these two occurrences of strip searching were not in compliance with those guidelines.
[20] On March 10, 2020, police vehicle camera footage was captured of Chief Allan Adam of Fort Chipewyan First Nation being tackled to the ground by an RCMP officer.
[23] Chantel Moore, a member of Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, was shot and killed in her apartment during a wellness check on June 4, 2020, in New Brunswick.
[25] The Public Prosecutions Service of New Brunswick, in a news release, stated that criminal charges were not warranted against the officer who shot and killed Moore and that none would be pursued.
[28] Rodney Levi, a member of Metepenagiag Mi'kmaq Nation on the Miramichi River, was shot and killed by the RCMP on June 12, 2020, in New Brunswick.
On October 5, 2021, forensic suicidologist Greg Zed testified at the coroner's inquest that the incident was a case of suicide by cop.
[33][34] Jones was shot and killed, another man was taken into police custody, and the woman for whom the officers were searching was transported to a hospital for a medical assessment.
[33] An Indigenous civilian monitor was selected to review a report completed by British Columbia's police watchdog on the shooting death of Jones.
[35] The woman was reportedly holding a replica gun and was left badly injured from multiple gunshot wounds inflicted by officers on the scene.
Indian Chiefs Judy Wilson informed The Canadian Press that the victim is a mother of two and suffered gunshot wounds to her spine.
[36] Following the deaths of Chantel Moore and Julian Jones, this incident marked the third shooting of a Tla-o-qui-aht individual by the RCMP in the span of eleven months.