The Decibel - Grief and fear in Saskatchewan after mass stabbing

Episode Date: September 7, 2022

Two days after a stabbing rampage in Saskatchewan, police are still looking for Myles Sanderson, who, along with his brother Damien, are suspected of killing 10 people and injuring 18 others. On Monday the RCMP confirmed that Damien Sanderson was found dead.The attacks happened in 13 different locations on the James Smith Cree Nation and in the nearby town of Weldon. The Globe’s Alanna Smith visits the communities and tells us about the attacks, the possible motive behind them and how the community is responding to the tragedy.The Hope for Wellness Help Line is available to all Indigenous people across Canada at 1-855-242-3310. Orchat online at hopeforwellness.ca 24/7 in English, French, and upon request in Cree, Ojibway and Inuktitut

Hi, I'm Mainika Raman-Welms, and you're listening to The Decibel, from The Globe and Mail. Two small, tight-knit communities in rural Saskatchewan are left grieving after a mass stabbing on Sunday. Eleven people died and 18 others were injured on the James Smith Cree Nation and in the nearby town of Weldon. Brothers Miles and Damian Sanderson are suspected of the crimes. On Monday, the RCMP confirmed that Damian was found dead. His body was located outdoors in a heavily grassed area in proximity to a house that was being examined. We can confirm he has visible injuries. These injuries are not believed to be self-inflicted at this point.

And Miles was still on the run. What we know is that this man is dangerous. We know that he's obviously still on the run. And I think it just provides a little bit more context for people, you know, all over Saskatchewan and where these alerts have been issued to just be cautious. The Globe's Alana Smith is on the ground in Saskatchewan. I spoke with her on Tuesday morning about the attacks. But because this story is evolving so quickly,

we spoke again Tuesday afternoon for an update. You'll hear that as well. This is The Decibel. Alana, thank you so much for speaking with me today. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. So we're talking on Tuesday morning. Where am I talking to you from right now? So right now I'm currently in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and that's about 65 kilometers or an hour west of the James Smith Cree First Nation and also the nearby town of Weldon where the tragedy unfolded. I guess I'm wondering how people are feeling two days after all of this has unfolded. We're speaking on Tuesday morning. Have you been able

to speak to anyone while you're there? Right. So we being myself and photographer Sarah Hilton, we went to James Smith Cree First Nation yesterday morning. So that was one morning after the stabbing spree. And when we first got there, it was about 9 a.m. It was quiet, just so quiet. I remember sitting in my car when I first arrived and you could hear the bugs in the grass. It was so quiet. There was absolutely little to no people on the streets there. We did see some residents, you know, peer out from behind their curtains or window coverings. There were RCMP markers at different houses in the community.

At least four homes were cordoned off with police tape. We did try to talk to community members. So we did knock on the doors of about maybe half a dozen to a dozen nation members, and we were asked to leave. Some of them said that they had been directed by their First Nation not to speak with the media, and others just said they weren't ready to talk or were still in mourning. After that, we drove to Weldon, which is about 30 minutes southwest, and that's the village where one man was killed. He's been identified as Wes Peterson. And at his house, there were police evidence markers dotting the porch.

Investigators were also going in and out of his house, collecting evidence throughout the day. And just beside his house, a memorial of flowers, which started in the morning, had grown quite substantially by nighttime. People in that community were willing to chat with us about Mr. Peterson because he was described as a pillar in that community were willing to chat with us about Mr. Peterson because he was described as a pillar in their community. He was a longtime resident. There was one woman we talked to. Her name was Ruby Works. And she said when she found out at the news, she, and I quote, barricaded herself in her sister's room. She locked herself right in. She said she was terrified to go

to sleep last night. No one in this town is going to never sleep again. You're going to be terrified to open your door, enter your door. And when talking about the victim, she said, Wes would take the shirt off his back and give it to you. And then there was another couple, and that's Diane and Leroy Shear. They were gardening when we came up to them yesterday afternoon. They were pulling potatoes actually from their yard. And they got numerous phone calls and people were like, you need to go inside.

Lock your doors, lock your house. That's what they did. When we talked to them yesterday, they were back on their field. They said that it's a super sad thing for their community. They would have never imagined something like this were happening. And something that they said too was just this guy, Wes, he was a huge part of their community. He ran the coffee mornings every morning with members of the community and mostly seniors. And Sunday, obviously, was the first time that he hadn't run this coffee morning

in years and years. Coffee mornings. I mean, that just sounds like such a small town community thing to do that he was so involved in his neighborhood there. Yeah, the couple I was talking to, they described it as coffee mornings every morning at the care home, which is about 7 a.m. daily. People would show up, and they would drink coffee together. Also, when I was talking to Ruby, she said this quote, and I think it shows a little bit about these coffee mornings. She said, and I quote, he used to drive around and check if everything was all right in the evenings. I'm sure going to miss that. I saw him Saturday morning and then I saw him Saturday evening.

When we stopped talking, my younger sister said, love you. Take care. I'll see you Sunday. Sundays were, of course, coffee mornings. And it wasn't Ron this Sunday. That's super sad. Yeah. So 11 people are now confirmed dead. So there were 10 people in the stabbing rampage. And now one of the suspects, Damian Sanderson, has also been been found dead.

So it sounds like you were able to speak to some people in Weldon about Wes Peterson, one of the victims. Do we know about any of the other victims of the attacks as well? Right, so right now we don't have a lot of information on the victims. As you said, there's 11 dead. That now includes one of the brothers accused in the massacre. There's also at least 18 injured. I know one of the victims has been identified on social media as Gloria Burns, and her family says she was part of the community's crisis response team on the First Nation. Gloria was my sister, and she's one of the victims.

She passed away doing her job. She passed away. She was a first responder and she went to a crisis call and got caught up in that violence and they killed her too. My sister was a very caring woman. She had time for everyone and tried her best to look after everyone. And they said that she died while helping two victims that haven't been identified yet. And there was a coal-fired son, Dylan Burns, that I'll read, and he said, It's just like my mom to protect that young man. She would have done the same for any of us, and she would have done the same for the man who has taken her life. And then there's another victim who's been identified as Lana Head. She was the mother of two daughters. On social media, some of her loved ones also wrote

messages in her memory. They described her as upbeat, thankful. There was one woman that called her smile a chipmunk cheek smile, if that gives you any sort of visual. Other than that, though, we're still really trying to learn more about the other victims of this attack. RCMP did say yesterday that none of the deceased are children or infants, and the youngest victim was born in 1999, so they'd be 22 or 23 years old. Okay, and you mentioned there's 18 people who are injured, not killed, but injured in these attacks. Do we know how they're doing? So unfortunately, we don't have much of an update on those victims at all. We did ask about their status yesterday to the RCMP, and Assistant Commissioner Blackmore said

she couldn't speak to the condition of any of those victims or the injuries. We did also go to the Malford Hospital. So that's the town that's very close to the First Nation. And we weren't allowed inside or to ask any questions. So unfortunately, we have no update on those right now. We'll be right back. Alana, let's take a step back here, and let's actually go back to Sunday morning when the stabbing rampage did happen. Police were first called at 5.40 a.m. about this. What do we know about how things unfolded Sunday morning? Right. So we all know it started, you know, 5.40 a.m. Sunday morning.

It was about two hours later that RCMP issued the dangerous persons alert. So it's alert on your phone, but it goes through radios as well. So and that was to residents of the First Nation and also immediate surrounding communities. And then just before 8, the RCMP named Damien and Miles Sanderson as the suspects. And that's when they released photos and descriptions of the two individuals. It was shortly after that, that that dangerous persons alert that we were talking about was extended. And that was to the entire province of Saskatchewan. And people were warned that the pair appeared to be traveling together in a vehicle.

And that dangerous persons alert was then extended to Manitoba and Alberta before a fifth update just after 12 p.m. that said witnesses saw the suspect vehicle in Regina. And then we didn't hear anything else for quite a few hours. It was until 3.45 p.m. where it was confirmed by RCMP that 10 people had been killed, and at that time, at least 15 others were injured, and that the stabbing spree had taken place in 13 separate locations. Wow. And if we're talking about an alert being issued across three provinces, I mean, this sounds like this was a pretty serious situation. Police were responding in a fairly serious manner then. Is that kind of the sense that you're getting from all of this?

Absolutely. I mean, to put it into perspective, this weekend's violence was one of the deadliest mass killings in Canadian history. So the Commissioner Blackmore, she did say that hundreds of police officers across the province are assisting in this manhunt. There's support from municipal forces and a lot of specialized forces. And the tragedy really has put a spotlight on rural policing. Of course, it's nothing like what happened in Nova Scotia in 2020 that left 22 dead. That shooting spree, it was during those attacks that a warning about the gunmen was only circulated through Twitter to a rural community, and Mounties have since testified that they didn't even know

of the province's emergency alert system at the time. So the Saskatchewan RCMP has really been praised for how quickly it issued those cell phone alerts about the threat, especially because it's so strikingly different. But we did have reporter Colin Freeze write about this yesterday, and he detailed how difficult it is for rural officers to police such a large stretch of Saskatchewan. He'd take, for example, Malfort. That's one of the cities I was talking about earlier that's close to the First Nation. On their municipal website, it says the local RCMP detachment has fewer than 20 officers at any given time, and they're responsible for covering 51,000 square kilometers, which houses about 15,000 residents. So huge amount of land, not a lot of manpower. So there's obviously questions just about rural policing right now, but Saskatchewan RCMP has been praised so far for their response.

Miles Anderson is still at large. Police say they think he's in Regina. They haven't found him yet, of course. And late on Monday, we were able to get more of a sense of his criminal history. What did we learn about him? Right. So Miles Sanderson has been wanted by the police in Saskatchewan since May. And that's for breaching conditions related to a previous prison sentence. Yesterday, we were told by the RCMP that his criminal history included both violence and property offenses. This morning, Janet Pruden also released her article on The Globe, and she explained that his criminal history is both long, it's violent, it began in his youth and spanned almost 20 years, and he had convictions

for domestic violence, armed robbery, and numerous other violent attacks, including a double stabbing committed with a fork. So obviously, Mr. Sanderson, he's actually now wanted for three counts of first degree murder. And RCMP say more charges are expected. But yeah, his criminal past spans quite a few years. I want to read you something, actually. This is this is from a decision of the Parole Board of Canada from February this year. This is how they described Miles. So, quote, your criminal history is very concerning, including the use of violence and weapons related to your index offenses and your history of domestic violence, which victimized family, including your children and non-family, end quote. I guess, what do we learn from a statement like that? Well, we learn a lot. Yesterday yesterday when it became, or a few more of

these details became known during the RCMP press conference in the afternoon. There were a lot of questions posed by the media about his criminal past, why people weren't made aware of his criminal past when these alerts were issued, what exactly was his criminal past. We didn't get a lot out of that press conference. Of course, we have more this morning, and that's because we have these documents in front of us. But what we know is that this man is dangerous. We know that he's obviously still on the run. And I think it just provides a little bit more context for people, you know, all over Saskatchewan and where these alerts have been issued to just be cautious, just because we know so many more details now about his background. I think the big question that a lot of people have when

they hear something like this is about the reason behind it. Do we have any idea of the motive of or why this happened? So RCMP haven't speculated on potential motivations for the attacks, but we do know that some of the stabbings they say were random. Other stabbings were targeted. Other than that, we know that Damien and Miles were brothers. We do not know whether or not they're part of the James Cree First Nation. So there's a lot of questions still on why this happened. People have made assumptions or statements, I should say, about drugs and violence from past altercations and stuff like that. But we just don't have any finite answers

right now on why it happened and why there were so many victims, honestly. And just lastly, Elena, what will you be watching for next to see what happens, how this unfolds? Right. So today, the photographer and I, we're going back out into these affected communities. We're going to try and see if we can piece together a lot of these details that people are still asking. You know, what happened? Why did it happen? Where exactly did it happen? How are the families doing now? Who's related? Who's not related? How did it go from James Smith Creek First Nation into Weldon? And, you know, is this violence going to continue? That's a huge question I think that people have. There's a lot of anxiety. You can kind of feel it here in Saskatchewan.

I know some of the folks that we talked to yesterday in Melfort were feeling quite anxious or stressed just going about their daily activities, you know, looking behind their shoulders, stuff like that. So lots of questions. Hopefully we're going to answer a few of those today. But first stop for us is going to be going back to these affected communities. Obviously, we're going to ask permission to be welcomed into some of these places, and we're going to go from there. Alana, it's now Tuesday afternoon for you. It's almost evening here in Toronto, and we're calling you back because you've got some updates for us. Can you just start by telling us where are you right now and what's going on? Sure. So it's been one of those days where every hour you're wondering what's going to come next because you're not really sure. So around noon on Tuesday, we received another emergency alert that was issued after RCMP

received reports that Miles Sanderson was spotted in the James Smith Cree Nation. So I was there earlier today. We tried again to speak with community members, but were asked to leave. So we stayed just on the perimeter of that community. And that was until, oh gosh, maybe about 30 minutes ago, there was a large group of RCMP vehicles that exited the community. We then just got another emergency alert that says they determined that he was not in the community. So right now I'm sitting in Melfort, which is very close by. It's about a 30-minute drive. And I'm just looking at the RCMP headquarters right now.

This is where a lot of those officers came back after this alert was put forward. And this just means that the search for Miles Sanderson continues. I mean, this sounds pretty scary. I would imagine for people in that community that to get those kinds of alerts, being told to stay in their houses and things like that, that's pretty scary stuff. Absolutely. I mean, it's already a traumatized community

with everything that's happened. And then they're asked to shelter in place again because he may still be in the community. So I wouldn't say that I understand what they were going through. I wasn't able to speak to anybody there, so I can't speak for them. But the tension, the anxiety, the stress that I think anybody would feel in that sort of situation was definitely, I guess, palpable in the community when I was there. It was very quiet. Everybody was in their homes, it seemed like. If

they weren't in their homes, they were in the community center, which is at the front of the nation, one of the entryways. There were tons of people there that were outside in cars mingling with each other, whereas anybody else who was in the community, it was very, very quiet. There was nobody on the streets. There were RCMP officers in their cars that were posted all throughout the area. So it was, yeah, it was stressful. It's scary. This man's still on the loose, so there's still a lot of questions.

And you've also heard some more info about the victims of this attack as well. What else did you learn today? So we do have some updated details just on some of the victims of this massacre. We already heard on the podcast that Gloria was one of the women that died during this massacre. We've now learned that she died at her brother's home. Her brother's name is Brian Burns. And Brian confirmed to the Globe and Mail that his 28-year-old son Gregory and his wife Bonnie Goodvoice Burns were also killed at his house that day.

He also said that his 11-year-old son was stabbed and he's been released since then with stitches on Monday from the hospital. So I know Brian on social media said he's just not sure if his boys can ever return home after such a devastating incident. Thank you, Elena. We'll stay in touch for sure. Thanks so much.

This is an evolving story, so you can find the latest updates on Globeandmail.com. Before we go, I just wanted to wish our summer producer, Zara Kozema, all the best. Thank you so much for all your help these last few months. Zara is off to produce the upcoming season of Stress Test, another podcast from The Globe and Mail. I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Kasia Mihailovic is our senior producer, and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor.

Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.