Use of force under scrutiny after fatal RCMP shooting in Elsipogtog

Elsipogtog First Nation is in shock after an RCMP officer shot and killed a community member late Sunday night.

Few details have emerged, but local residents have identified the victim as Steven “Iggy” Dedam.

The news raises questions about what steps authorities have taken to rein in the deadly use of force more than four years after police in New Brunswick fatally shot two Indigenous people in separate incidents.

Local residents gathered outside the Elsipogtog RCMP detachment Monday to build a sacred fire and demand “justice for Iggy.”

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, people on social media posted messages of sorrow and outrage with the hashtag #JusticeforIggy, some urging friends and family not to rely on the RCMP for wellness checks.

“If I ever need a wellness check, NEVER send the RCMP #JusticeforIggy,” one Facebook user wrote.

But the RCMP’s top commander in New Brunswick later issued a statement saying that the deadly encounter was not in fact a “wellness check.”

“On September 8th, 2024, the New Brunswick RCMP were dispatched to a 911 call for service involving a suicidal male armed with a weapon at a residence in Elsipogtog,” DeAnna L. Hill, Commanding Officer of RCMP J Division, said in a statement on Thursday.

“I want to clarify that information circulating that this call was a wellness check is inaccurate,” she said. A spokesperson declined to elaborate. “Out of respect for the integrity of the independent review, the NB RCMP will not provide any additional comments or explanations related to the ongoing investigation,” Cpl. Hans Ouellette said.

The Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT), which investigates cases such as police shootings in New Brunswick, published a statement Monday that outlined what it called “preliminary information” about the deadly encounter.

According to that version of events, the RCMP received a call about a man “allegedly threatening to harm himself.” Two RCMP officers “responded and were approached by a male carrying weapons,” the statement said, without specifying the type of weapon or weapons.

One of the police officers then used a conducted energy weapon, commonly known as a Taser, “but it was ineffective,” and the other officer shot the man, who was pronounced dead “soon after,” according to the SIRT.

The New Brunswick RCMP published an initial statement saying that around 11:19 p.m. on Sunday, Mounties from the Elsipogtog detachment “responded to a report of a man in mental distress with a weapon at a residence on Graham Road in Elsipogtog.”

“During the response, the man refused to drop his weapon and would not cooperate with police. As the situation evolved, a member discharged their firearm at the man. First aid was immediately administered on the scene and the man was taken to hospital, where he later died,” the RCMP said.

At least one family member challenged the RCMP’s claim that he received immediate first aid.

Amber Joseph, a sister of Dedam, said in a public Facebook post that when she arrived on the scene, compression wasn’t being applied to his wounds and “he was bleeding out.”

“After he was tased and shot three times, they put handcuffs on him and told him he was under arrest, that’s what was done immediately after,” she said in another post. “It wasn’t first aid like they said.”

The RCMP declined to provide additional details about the details shooting while the SIRT investigation is ongoing.

The SIRT is mandated to investigate “all matters that involve death, serious injury, sexual assault and intimate partner violence or other matters of significant public interest” involving police officers in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, according to its website.

The agency describes itself as “independent of government and police,” with a civilian director who is “responsible for the general direction of all investigations.”

SIRT’s director is Erin Nauss, a lawyer and former Nova Scotia Department of Justice official. She told the NB Media Co-op that she will determine whether to press charges based on a report that her team will prepare. No timeline for that report was immediately available on Monday.

Investigators with the SIRT include two former police officers, “each with over 25 years of criminal investigation experience with the RCMP,” and two “full-time seconded police officers “who answer only to the Director while seconded, one from the Halifax Regional Police and one from the RCMP.” SIRT also has access to “other police resources as required” and administrative support, the agency’s website states.

Similar cases in New Brunswick were previously handled by Quebec’s Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes (BEI), which investigated the fatal police shootings of Rodney Levi, 48, of Metepenagian Mi’kmaq Nation and Chantel Moore, 26, of Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation. Both shootings took place about one week apart in June 2020.

In Chantel Moore’s case, Edmundston police officer Const. Jeremy Son has maintained that when he arrived at her apartment, waking her up for a late-night wellness check, she brandished a knife and approached him threateningly before he opened fire. A former boyfriend living out-of-province had asked the Edmundston Police Force to check on Moore after he received text messages causing him to fear for her safety.

A lawsuit alleging negligence on the part of the officer and the City of Edmundston is ongoing, Chantel Moore’s mother Martha Martin confirmed.

Also in June 2020, RCMP Const. Scott Hait shot Rodney Levi, who was visiting the home of his pastor near Miramichi at the time. Witnesses said Levi took two large knives from the kitchen onto the back deck and refused to drop them, before police Tasered him three times and shot him twice in the chest.

In those cases, no charges were laid against police. The BEI said those decisions rested with New Brunswick’s Public Prosecution Services.

Coroner’s inquests eventually produced a series of recommendations related to the two shootings. For example, in the case of Rodney Levi, a five-person jury recommended that “in situations involving mental wellness checks on First Nations, RCMP should not be the first responder – but be on standby for Mobile Crisis Units or an Aboriginal liaison for the community.”

The jury also recommended “that Mobile Crisis Units should be a 24-hour service.” Other recommendations included “that the RCMP expedite the deployment of body-worn cameras to all officers nation-wide.”

Cpl. Hans Ouellette, a spokesperson for the New Brunswick RCMP, noted an upwards trend in mental health-related calls and said the RCMP had “strengthened crisis intervention and de-escalation training.”

Ouellette couldn’t immediately confirm whether a Mobile Crisis Unit exists in the Elsipogtog area or whether police were wearing body cameras during the latest shooting. The RCMP is currently introducing body-worn cameras across the country.

Elsipogtog recently became home to an organization called Indige Watch which is tasked with accompanying the RCMP to help with de-escalation. But that group was called in too late, according a statement issued Monday by Indige Watch and Kopit Lodge.

“Unfortunately for the team who received the call, the dire chain of events that took the life of our community member had transpired, and instead the team had to do their best to manage the scene,” the statement said.

Meetings with the RCMP have been collaborative, the statement said. “In these collaborative meetings, Indige Watch made it clear that they want to be involved in nearly every aspect of RCMP calls that relate to our people who are in distress in District 6, Siknikyuk,” it said.

“The failure to communicate to our team that RCMP was arriving at the home in Big Cove tjitj [the Graham Road area] to conduct a ‘wellness check’ was not in the good spirit of working collaboratively.”

The New Brunswick RCMP declined to comment about the involvement of Indige Watch.

In the aftermath of the June 2020 shootings and the hit-and-run death of Brady Francis of Elsipogtog, First Nations chiefs in New Brunswick called for an Indigenous-led public inquiry into systemic racism in the provincial justice system.

Premier Blaine Higgs refused those demands and eventually appointed a non-Indigenous commissioner with a weaker mandate to study systemic racism, a process that was ultimately boycotted by First Nations chiefs.

Kevin Arseneau, the Green Party MLA whose riding includes Elsipogtog, renewed those demands this week in the wake of the shooting.

“New Brunswick needs to commission an Indigenous-led, independent public inquiry into the New Brunswick justice and policing systems to uncover systemic racism against Indigenous peoples and how to correct it,” he said on Facebook.

This article was updated on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024 at 10:45 a.m.

David Gordon Koch is a journalist with the NB Media Co-op. This reporting has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada, administered by the Canadian Association of Community Television Stations and Users (CACTUS).