DoomsdaysCWCame across this story while researching #ThunderBay (where some of my ancestors are from). From 2019.
Inside the controversy over Thunder Bay’s #Indigenous #CommunityPatrol group
The #WiindoDebweMosewinPatrol monitors the city for people in distress and posts anonymized stories of racism on social media. Critics say it doesn’t value evidence — but the group insists that it’s after a different kind of truth
Written by Jon Thompson
Mar 7, 2019
THUNDER BAY — "'Darryl' could tell you all about the negative interactions he’s had with the #ThunderBayPolice Service since he moved to the city from Sudbury in 2016. His girlfriend, his cousin, and most of his friends could tell you about interactions of their own. So could his grandfather, who told him that officers had once driven him out of town and left him on the highway to walk home — something known as a '#StarlightTour.'
"Darryl could tell you, but he won’t tell the police. He never files complaints. As an Indigenous person, he has no expectation that they would take him seriously: the Thunder Bay Police Service and its board, as demonstrated in two recent reports from #Ontario’s police-watchdog organizations, are plagued by #SystemicRacism.
"Instead, he has been telling his stories to #BearClanThunderBay, now known as the Wiindo Debwe Mosewin Patrol — a group of about 40 volunteers who circuit the streets, waterways, bridges, and woods, looking for people in distress. They don’t demand identification or interrogate him, he says. They offer him hot chocolate, and they listen.
"'I just feel more comfortable talking to people who understand the issues,' he says. 'Most people are in denial about the whole police situation, but me, personally, I’ve experienced it.'
"Depending on who you ask, Bear Clan Thunder Bay either found itself or put itself in the middle of the public conversation sparked by the reports. Local politicians — and the group’s parent organization, based in Winnipeg — have accused it of being anti-police, racially divisive, and alarmist. The Thunder Bay chapter, one of dozens across the country, was stripped of its right to use the Bear Clan name."
Read more:
https://www.tvo.org/article/inside-the-controversy-over-thunder-bays-indigenous-community-patrol-group
#WePoliceOurselves #ACAB #FirstNations
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