Policing in Indigenous Canadian communities has strong continuities with the long history of colonization. Innocent Indigenous lives are lost each year in acts of police violence. Almost three years have passed since the summer of 2020, a time of immense public grief and outrage over successive police killings of Indigenous New Brunswickers. In the wake of court proceedings which left families and New Brunswick Indigenous communities feeling that their voices were not being heard, the community increasingly called for a serious and deeper look at the structural racism underpinning such brutal events.
As the Commission on Systemic Racism established in response to public pressure lacked Indigenous leadership, Indigenous staff, and adequate resourcing, it failed to win the support of many Indigenous leaders. Ultimately, the commission was publicly criticized by both Wolastoqey and Mi’kmaq chiefs, who withdrew from participation in the process. With the report released last December, concerns remain about what impact, if any, the Commission may have on policing and so many other issues that claim the lives of Indigenous New Brunswickers far too often. The absolute urgency of action to address structural racism is highlighted by the recent national emergency declaration on violence against Indigenous women, girls, two-spirit people.
The effects of colonialism on the Indigenous peoples of Canada are profound and far-reaching. It has caused the erosion of languages, cultures, and the loss of countless lives. Colonial ideals have been woven into the fabric of all forms of Canadian law and its enforcement through policing. These ideals and personal bias formed through colonial racism have taken countless lives.
Ethan Augustine, a member of Metepenagiag Nation, testifies to the long history of colonial violence that has gripped both his own family and other members of his community:
I have heard stories from my grandmother and other elders in the community about people who were taken to residential schools and returned completely different. Once I lamented that I wished I had known more of my own language, and her response saddened me: As children, they were tormented so relentlessly by other, non-Indigenous children that she was scared to teach my father how to speak his native language for fear of him being made fun of by non-Indigenous people. My father, being born the 70s, lived much of his life prior to the Marshall Decision; yet even back then, we were still allowed to hunt and fish on our government-recognized reserve land. Despite this, fish and game wardens would still harass him and his peers and attempt to seize fishing gear from them even though they never left their land.
In June 2020, Rodney Levi, a member of the Metepenagiag Mi’kmaq Nation and close family friend of Ethan Augustine’s father, was shot and killed by RCMP officers. Having struggled with substance use, Rodney was on his road to recovery. During this time, he often visited his pastor’s home to talk and to seek support for what he was going through, hoping to gain insight on how to continue his journey. On the evening of June 12, whilst at the pastor’s home, Rodney began to get paranoid about police arriving and grabbed a kitchen knife for protection. As he was doing so, someone else in the house noticed the knife in his hand and called the police before anything escalated, as they were worried about the well-being of everyone involved.
Eventually, the police arrived to talk to Rodney, but after a brief period, the interaction left him agitated. The initial police response after a brief time was to deploy a taser on him, causing him to drop the knife and fall to his knees. As he attempted to get back up and reach for the knife, he was shot twice by police with a firearm. His injuries were fatal.
The following morning, the Chief of the Metepenagiag Mi’kmaq Nation convened a Livestream on Facebook for community members. He wished to express his anger about the situation, as the police did not act rightfully in his eyes. Before the killing, the police had initially contacted himself as Chief, instead of Rodney’s family, to figure out how to deescalate the situation. It was the police’s responsibility to reach out to the family and let them know about the situation with Rodney, so that they could help mitigate the situation and resolve the conflict without the need for violence.
When Rodney was shot, the police immediately classified his death as “suicide by cop,” contradicting statements by multiple witnesses of the event. These witnesses were present because police did not properly secure the scene, meaning that protective protocols were not followed, endangering everyone in the vicinity.
At this early stage, the story that was told from the police perspective did not make sense to Rodney’s family. They knew his intentions were not to lose his life, but to seek help and recover from his past. During the inquiry into Rodney’s death, the footage of the event was reviewed, and the sergeant responsible said that he had “no choice” but to shoot Rodney, suggesting Rodney “charged” at the officer. However, because police failed to conduct protective protocols, witnesses were able to testify against the “suicide by cop” narrative. Members of the community knew of Rodney’s intentions to heal, not by any means to die.
If the police had secured the scene, no one else would have been involved, and police may have had the chance to deescalate, and avoid the use of lethal force. During the inquest it was disclosed that the officer, who shot Rodney, was not fully trained in the use of all his service weapons, including the firearm. By escalating directly from a taser to his firearm, he neglected to use other potential non-lethal weapons, including pepper spray and batons. These failures costed Rodney his life.
Problems with police violence on the Metepenagiag Reserve did not begin with Rodney’s death. Sadly, this was only a recent chapter in the long history of violence against Indigenous people. Ethan Augustine put it this way:
My father once told my brother and I a story of how, many years after his cousin’s death, he learned from someone that on the night he passed away, police described the scene over the radio as, “Just another dead Indian on the side of the road.” Despite the progress that has been made since my grandmother and my father were young, we are far from ridding ourselves from the impacts of antiquated colonial ideals. Rodney’s death and the way the situation was handled afterward is yet another example of this.
According to Augustine, there are two main aspects to these situations: noting the culture of the Indigenous person, and assuming there were drugs involved. This resulted in reduced empathy in the eyes of law enforcement towards the Indigenous people involved. The lack of access to mental health services was also a factor, something which is a persistent issue that affects many people in New Brunswick, both Indigenous and non-indigenous, rural, and urban alike. Augustine continues:
When I spoke to Rodney’s sister about publishing this story, she revealed that about a month after his death, the treatment center that Rodney had applied to as part of his recovery journey had finally given him approval to go. A month after he died. Even if he had not been killed by police, so many things could have happened in that month waiting to get treatment. Mental health and addiction are urgent issues, not something that can be put off for over a month.
Augustine reflected on the strength of his community and culture in the face of past experiences. He describes his culture and his identity as, “persecuted, but resilient.” He delved further into the meaning of this phrase, discussing how there is a vast history of trying to erase the culture of his people, from the genocide committed in residential schools to the vast colonial order which made them possible. From this dark time in his ancestors’ history, the violence continues. Due to the amount of hate through racism and inequity that defines a part of his identity, Augustine spoke about how he lives in distrust towards those who have wronged his culture.
Some people perceive us as resilient because we are still standing through colonialism, others perceive us as freeloaders [which heightens] the “special treatment” demands idea, [and] others might take pity on us and may infantilize us and our ability to do things ourselves.
Despite colonialism and the continued racism against Indigenous cultures, Indigenous peoples have been able to show that they are more than what colonists have painted them as and guided them to become. But in this case, as the same for many others, those in control did not choose to look past negative stereotypes, resulting in the loss of a life, and another reason to push for equity and justice for Indigenous communities. To the government, he is just another statistic, but to the entire Metepenagiag Nation, he is more than that, he is a father, a son, a friend, a spirit, and most importantly, a soul that could have been shared with his community. Rodney Levi is now absent from the many lives he had impacted and the lives of those that cherish him, all because of these pervasive colonial structures that continue to impact Indigenous communities.
Ashleigh Everett is a University of New Brunswick (UNB) honours undergraduate in anthropology with an interest in cultural resources and museums. Ethan Augustine is a graduate student in Biology at UNB and a member of Metepenagiag Mi’kmaq Nation.