Released on October 24, an investigative report initiated by Saskatchewan justice minister Eric Cline suggests that police could be held accountable for the deaths of three aboriginal men near Saskatoon, Canada.
The death of aboriginal youth Neil Stonechild prompted the inquiry, even though the police had closed his case on December 5, 1990, just days after his body was found, frozen, on the outskirts of Saskatoon. Police had declared that there were no signs of foul play, and that Stonechild died while walking to jail to turn himself in after a night of drinking, reported CBC news.
According to the recently released investigative report, a friend of Stonechild, Jason Roy, had told police in 1990 that he last saw Stonechild in the backseat of a police cruiser. The Saskatoon police never recorded this information.
In 2000, two more aboriginal men died of hypothermia on the outskirts of the city, and a third man lived to tell his story saying that Saskatoon police picked him up in a cruiser, drove him to a field, and abandoned him to die in the middle of winter, according to CBC news.
These similar deaths of aboriginal men led the Saskatchewan justice minister Eric Cline to request an inquiry into the death of Stonechild on February 20, 2003. Justice David Henry Wright, of the Court of the Queen
