In 2003 Jason Lee and I wrote, Police Bias and Videotape, a story about Frank Paul.A homeless alcoholic Mi’kmaq man who froze to death after being dumped, while soaking wet, in an alley by members of the Vancouver Police Department when the temperature was below freezing.  Despite video evidence and expert testimony that the police officers involved may have lied about what happened to Frank Paul, no official hearing or proper investigation was held.

In 2005 the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) supplied developmental money for an investigative documentary.
I felt it would be necessary to respond to the police if they portrayed the circumstances of Frank Paul’s death as an isolated incident. I chose to look at  all First Nations deaths in British Columbia police custody from 1967 to 2001. It was determined that 25 of the deaths met the threshold for serious further investigation. Freedom of Information requests were submitted to police departments, governmental bodies and the B.C. Coroners Office.

Why 1967? When I was helping to establish Prostitution Alternatives Counselling and Education Society (P.A.C.E) I had become infinitely familiar with the consequences of public bodies deciding what groups do and do not fall within the sphere of ‘public interest’.  Even going to the length of publishing Violence Against Women in Vancouver’s Street Level Sex Trade and the Police Response  a large quantitative study to hammer home the point that we had created a killing field for serial predators. It appears that for the Office of Information  and Privacy, the Coroner’s Office, the Vancouver Police Department and to a surprisingly lesser extent the RCMP some lives are still less important than others.

This also explains why this project starts with the rape and murder of Rose Marie Roper and why I chose to include incidents that are not deaths in custody. Issues like this can only be understood in their broader context. Divorced from that,  any potential benefits and changes risk being diminished.

Frank Paul’s death was not an isolated incident:

• More people die in police custody in the province of British Columbia (B.C.) than anywhere else in Canada.

• A study by the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) found that, “B.C. has more than twice as many jail and police-involved deaths as Ontario, even though Ontario has three times the population. With 267 deaths over the last 15 years, B.C. had the largest number of deaths per year of any of the six provinces and territories for which numbers were available.” (http://bccla.org/pressreleases/10Police_deaths.html)

At that time the police investigated themselves whenever someone died in custody. Our concern was with the adequacy of police lead investigations into these deaths given that:

• A 2007 randomized forensic audit by Josiah Wood, a retired BC Supreme Court Justice, concluded that one in five (20%) of the internal investigations by the police into accusations of misconduct and abuse failed to meet expected minimal professional standards. The former Justice concluded that as the seriousness of the allegations rose so did the likelihood that the internal investigation was fundamentally flawed and that in several instances the sole purpose of the internal investigation as conducted by police appeared to be to vindicate themselves of any wrongdoing. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/law-crime-and-justice/criminal-justice/police/publications/independent/police-complaint-process-report.pdf

Specifically we were concerned with what happens when it is  a First Nations person who dies in police custody considering that:

• In the province of British Columbia between 2013 and 2017 –  127 people died during or within 24 hours of contact with the police. First Nations people accounted for 20% of the deaths; about 3.5 times higher than their 6% representation in the population of B.C. (Opportunities for Different Outcomes – Police: A crucial component of B.C.’s mental health system)

• From 1993 to 2003 Using data from the British Columbia Coroner’s Service our research revealed that 60 percent of all First Nations deaths while incarcerated occurred in police custody. For the Non-Aboriginal population, the figure is 25 per-cent. During that decade whenever a First Nations person died in custody the Coroner ruled that the cause of death was undetermined in 20 per-cent of cases, while the undetermined rate for the non-First Nations inmate population was 8 per-cent. Accidents were ruled the cause of death in 40 per-cent of the First Nations cases but only 28 per-cent for non-First Nations.

Race appearing to have a role in the outcome and determination of the cause of death raises obviously troubling questions.

All departments refused to release any relevant information. We requested that these decisions be subject of a quasi-judicial review by the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (O.I.P.C.).

Despite our request that the cases be bundled together the OIPC made us argue each case individually. I had approached legal advocacy organizations and other non-profits but only the United Native Nations and Union of BC Indians Chiefs stepped forward to help.

While all of this was going on, the BC provincial government decided to hold a Public Inquiry into Frank Paul’s death.
The recommendations that came out of The Davies Commission inquiry into the death of Frank Paul contributed to the establishment of the Independent Investigations Office of BC, a civilian-led police oversight agency responsible for conducting investigations into incidents of death or serious harm that may have been the result of the actions or in-actions of a police officer. As the goal of the documentary was the establishment of civilian oversight of the police and that a formal review of Frank Paul’s death be held, the decision was made to return to working on the issue of Vancouver’s murdered and missing women. A clip from that is included in the Rose Marie Roper segment.

After several years of back and forth legal submissions the OIPC ruled that the documents, necessary for any proper investigation into the First Nations deaths in police custody were not in the public interest.

As Voltaire wrote “To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.”

While the OIPC might agree with the Vancouver Police Department, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the BC Coroners office that this issue is not important enough to meet the threshold of ‘public interest’, new and old friends from across Canada and around the world have stepped forward and demonstrated it’s important to them.  That they volunteered their time and effort to help bring public attention to these stories. With their help and assistance you can decide for yourself if this is something you care about. Anything of quality is due to their efforts. The errors, omissions, mistakes and failures – of which I am sure there are many – are mine alone.

– Leonard Cler-Cunningham with Mariam Zohra D.

Mother’s Day 2023

Dedicated to my mother Connie Cunningham

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“More than a decade ago writer Leonard Cler-Cunningham first sought to raise public awareness about the disturbing subject of aboriginal deaths in custody. His concerns arose from investigating the case of Clayton Willey, who died hours after being brutally beaten by police. But Cler-Cunningham was pretty much ignored then, and there was an institutional failure – by the justice system, by government, by the mainstream media – to adequately follow up on his concerns. Now he is back with a renewed demand for a public inquiry – not into the death of one person, but into the deaths of more than 40. “He cannot be ignored again. Too many questions remain unanswered, about too many deaths.”
Mark Hume, author and former National Correspondent for The Globe and Mail

“When a person is taken into custody by the police or other government institutions, the institutions become legally responsible for that person’s safety and well being. Investigative journalist Leonard Cler-Cunningham has painstakingly researched numerous First Nations deaths in custody on behalf of the families still waiting for answers to questions surrounding the deaths of their loved ones.  Without exception, the mission statements or guiding principles of our Canadian Institutions and Police Services state that they must operate with integrity, and in the best interest of the public. A reasonable person would expect that full and timely access to all information related to a death in custody be provided to the decedent’s family and their advocates. Many wonder why doors have closed and years have passed for these families and their advocates who only search for the truth on these deaths in custody. First Nations deaths in custody are a matter of Public Interest. In my opinion to suggest otherwise is wrong. Leonard Cler-Cunningham’s call for a Public Inquiry into this matter is a step in the right direction.”
Doug Fell, Retired Detective, Vancouver Police Department