Police and Indigenous People: No trust!

Police and Indigenous People Don’t trust each other!

The relationship between police and Indigenous people is abounding with racism, tension, murder, and is severely broken.          

Eishia Hudson was 16 years old when she was shot and killed by Winnipeg police in April 2020. 

Police accused her of being involved in a liquor store robbery.  She was shot and killed by police while she was driving a stolen vehicle. The police officer was not held accountable for the unfortunate incident. 

Her father was very vocal and assembled groups to protest calling for an end to police violence against indigenous people and people of color.  He said his people do not call the police for anything.  He explained that there are situations that happen daily where people are in danger, need support, but cannot trust the police.  He believes the justice system was not made for indigenous people nor involving their input. 

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls have been a major concern of the indigenous community.  The National inquiry published a Final Report in 2019 to address violence against women and girls with an emphasis on addressing colonial violence for many generations. 

 Many of the issues:

Racism

Fear

A call for Aboriginal Healing practices

Language and cultural barriers

Healthcare disparities

No funding

Missing girls

Mental Illness

"As women, it is astonishing how we are treated. How our voices are still not heard, how we are ignored. If women were not standing here today, there would be no men, no children."

"We are not being taken seriously. It is frustrating, insulting, and exhausting."

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People

MMIWP

The Missing and Murdered Indigenous:  Women and People crisis was formed because of the generations of abuse, violence, bad policies, and promises that were not fulfilled by the government.  The MMIW movement advocates to eliminate violence against indigenous women and bring to the forefront rates of disappearances and murders of these women and girls. 

The solution to the crisis depends on recommendations, experiences, and suggestions from those impacted in the Indigenous communities and their family members. These voices need to be heard around the world to display knowledge, values, and practices of the Indigenous community.   

231 Calls for Justice rated efforts an F and says progress is so slow.  Community members are still fighting and still have a problem with women going missing and not found and little or no attempt to search for them.  Little has happened since the inquiry report.

Resources help but they are calling for a call for justice for their women and end this genocide.

It’s important that we talk about and educate everyone on what is happening. 

Their people are being taken and murdered by non-indigenous men who do harm and are not brought to justice because of their nonindigenous status and the tribal court has no jurisdiction over them. 

The tribes are not given the power to protect their people. 

This is very uncomfortable to know women and girls do not feel safe.  This is a very deep topic that I feel connected to having escaped several attempts of kidnapping and violence myself in my own community.  I am tortured to this day of memories of running for my life and calling police who never showed up. 

Indigenous people are missing every day.  This is a grave concern. These families are suffering every day.   

Where is the support and where is the awareness? 

They want the Police to just start doing something!

Written by Sameidra Carter LCSW-C