Innu leadership and members of the Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation are accusing members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police of using excessive force in an arrest — which was recorded and posted online — at a home in Sheshatshiu Tuesday night.
“If they don’t want to be here, they can move on,” Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation Chief Eugene Hart said of the officers, speaking to the CBC on Wednesday.
Hart joined several dozen people outside the local RCMP detachment in protest, while awaiting release of the man taken into custody.
The arrest was prompted by a call from the man’s girlfriend, Nerissa Rich. She said he was drunk at the time and her hope was police would take him to one of their holding cells to sleep it off.
She said it was an unusual situation for the family, that there was no violence involved, but it seemed like the right call in the moment.
“I don’t want him to bother people at the house and especially with my kids there. So I only want him to go here [to the detachment] and sleep it off and I pick him up in the morning. But that’s not what happened,” she said, waiting for his release.
Her boyfriend, who is not being named by CBC, has been charged with four counts of unlawfully assaulting a peace officer with a weapon or causing bodily harm, two charges of resisting or obstructing a peace officer and one count of mischief relating to property.
The video posted to social media by Rich begins with officers already inside the home. Three police officers have their hands on the man, as he stands against an exterior door. A dog is continuously barking throughout the incident.
There are shouts from people inside the home, including Rich, towards the officers, who try to restrain the man.
At one point, as the man turns his body and tries to pull an arm away, one of the officers takes his hand from the man’s wrist, and hits him in the face.
Shouts and screams erupt, as the same officer threatens to arrest one of the onlookers. Not long after, the same officer proceeds to punch the man the police are trying to arrest.
That prompts Nerissa Rich to scream about her boyfriend being punched in the face.
“I’m fucking recording you!,” she yells at the officers.
“My son is here!” she yells.
The man is taken to the ground. At one point, he wraps his arm around the leg of the officer who had punched him.
“He just spit in his face,” says another officer of the man on the ground, turning to Rich, standing between her and the ongoing arrest.
The officer who previously threw a punch then punches the man on the ground again, three more times, before using his stun gun.
Rich screams: “Stop!” At one point, screaming, she calls the officers “assholes.”
Not long after, a second officer told Rich to back up, or she would also be taken to jail, before the video ends. It captures just under two minutes in total.
Lorraine Rich, who is the aunt of the man who was arrested, said she got through only part of the video on social media, before deciding to take action.
“It felt like I had to do something,” Lorraine Rich said, while also waiting outside the detachment.
She called for community members to join in protest outside of the detachment Wednesday.
“I said this morning somebody is going to get killed by the cops if something isn’t done,” she said.
Innu Nation is calling for change in the way policing is done in their communities
Innu Nation Grand Chief Jodie Ashini joined the gathering in Sheshatshiu, saying the video shows what is “clearly excessive force.”
“I feel it’s more of a systemic racism problem,” she said, suggesting there have been other objectionable incidents spoken of by community members, not captured on video.
“They’re continuing that long history of colonial power and abuse,” she said.
Hart and Ashini said they have asked for removal of one officer in the video and asked that he not be sent to any other detachments on reserves.
“I made it clear in [the detachment]. He is no longer welcome,” Hart said.
They also said they would like to see the establishment of a tribal police service for the First Nation, being an autonomous police service managed by the community. That has been an ask “for years” and would have to involve action by both the provincial and federal governments.
CBC News has contacted the RCMP, but has yet to receive a response to questions.
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