The Decibel - The call to disband the Thunder Bay police

Episode Date: April 25, 2024

This week, a group of First-Nations leaders called for the Thunder Bay Police Service to be disbanded for the second time – following charges against high ranking members of the service and board, and several reports accusing the police service of racism, discrimination and misconduct, specifically in the cases involving Indigenous people.The Globe’s Willow Fiddler has been covering this story and is on the show to explain the problems with the Thunder Bay Police Service, and what led to this call for the service to be disbanded.Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [e-mail]

Before we get started, a warning that today's episode includes discussions of violence. These three families have filed complaints with the Inspector General of Policing of Ontario because of the complete and utter failure of the Thernaby Police Service to conduct investigations into the deaths of Indigenous peoples. Earlier this week, a group of First Nations leaders from Northern Ontario called for the Thunder Bay Police Service to be disbanded. There is a complete lack of trust. Police Service to be disbanded. The Thunder Bay Police Service has turned into a cold case factory. There is a complete lack of trust. Everything has broken down. The Thunder Bay Police have been mired in controversy for years now. Several reports have accused the force of racism, discrimination, and misconduct, and improperly investigating the deaths of Indigenous people.

Willow Fidler has been covering this story for The Globe. Today, she explains the problems with the Thunder Bay Police Service and what led to this moment. I'm Maina Karaman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Willow, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. So we heard this week that Indigenous leaders are calling for the Thunder Bay Police Service to be disbanded, which would be a pretty big move. I guess, how significant is that? Well, this is the second time that Indigenous leaders have called for the disbandment of the service. The first time was about two years ago.

And this recent call is more significant, I would say, than the previous one, because this call to disband the service and its board has gone to the Inspector General of Policing in Ontario. And that's a newly powered position. And it's the Office of the Police Oversight. And it essentially replaces the previous provincial agencies. And he just came into power. Ryan Tushner just came into power, so to speak, April 1st with the new Policing Act in Ontario. So this is all new legislation. And this office has so-called superpowers. It's being hailed as the first of its kind in the country in terms of

policing oversight. And that includes the ability to dissolve police services and its boards. Okay, so it's really, it's different this time because there's actually something that can be done when the call is being made now. Right. So the office, you know, did confirm that they have received two complaints from two families in Thunder Bay and that they will be reviewed carefully by his office.

And so if the police force is disbanded, Willow, what would replace it in Thunder Bay? Good question. I mean, there's been talk of other police services such as the provincial police, but there's also First Nations police services in the region. And a couple of years ago, there was actually talks with an expert panel that had been hired by the police board. And one of their recommendations or ideas was a regional policing model or approach utilizing the current policing services available in the region. Nishinabayaske Police Service, for example, services a large number of First Nations in Nishinabayaske Nation Territory, which covers a large part of Northern Ontario.

And we know that Thunder Bay, for example, is a big hub for all of these communities. So we talked a little bit about potential what could happen here. Let's actually look at the reasons behind this call now, Willow. So the call for services to be disbanded comes really after several human rights complaints against members of the Thunder Bay Police Service and its board, and also some charges against high ranking officials. So let's break this down and start with the complaints first. What were the allegations in those human rights complaints alleging misconduct against then Police Chief Sylvie Hoth and her lawyer, Holly Walburn, as well as Staff Sergeant Mike Dimini. And it gets messy. This is the thing. There are a lot of allegations in these complaints, largely involving Mike Dimini and Holly Walburn and Sylvie Hoth.

So Georgianne's complaint, we'll just break it down, comes from an incident that happened in 2021. She was shopping in a store in Thunder Bay and was apparently approached by an off-duty officer who she didn't recognize. told her that there had been rumors going around that Mike Dimony was leaking information about cases and investigations to a social media page, a Facebook page that is quite notorious in Thunder Bay. And Mike Dimony, of course, was a staff sergeant at the time and Georgianne Morisot was chair of the police board. Correct. The complaint alleges a lot of misconduct that Georgianne was then put under investigation for allegedly leaking information and Georgianne was then investigated by outside agencies and she's alleging that she was harassed throughout this whole time. And then even other officers were retaliated against for any involvement that they may have

had or were suspected of being involved. So there's that kind of situation that was happening there. And then Mike Dimony, he was also the center of another allegation, right? Officers were saying he had committed, I guess, improper acts really during a service call. Right. So there were two officers that had come forward with complaints that, you know, he attended a certain call, you know, made an unlawful entry, unlawful arrest, you know, falsifying records. So what happened was when these two officers took their concerns to their superior, they felt like Mike Dimini was not investigated properly. He was exonerated a short time later. And then the officers themselves that filed these complaints felt that they were then harassed and retaliated against in forms of things like being charged under the Police Services Act,

allegations that Sylvie Hoth and Holly Walburn were denying workplace claims. These officers, you know, had PTSD, were extremely triggered by this, and eventually just forced out. And there's also other significant things that are happening too, right? One of the police oversight bodies charged then police chief Sylvie Hoff with deceit and discreditable conduct, but she actually retired before the hearings actually happened there. So that kind of didn't move forward at that point. But she actually retired before the hearings actually happened there. So that kind of didn't move forward at that point. Right. She retired about six months earlier than she had originally announced and about a week and a half, maybe two weeks before her first scheduled hearing under the Police Services Act for the misconduct charges. And that was for how she handled the George Ann Morisot complaint.

Because she retired, she's no longer a police officer, no longer held accountable under the Police Services Act. So she got out of those charges. So let me ask you now about the criminal charges by the OPP, the Ontario Provincial Police. These are separate from the charges that we just talked about that Hoth faced from the oversight body. These criminal charges are against three people, Mike Dimity, Holly Walburn, who was in-house

counsel, and Sylvie Hoth, the former chief of police. What were each of them charged with? Mike Dimity was the first to be charged in this investigation in December. His charges include two counts of assault, and those are related to incidents that occurred in August of 2014 and October 2016, as well as breach of trust and obstruction of justice. And that is related to incidents in November of 2020, which is the same timeline as the complaints filed by the two former officers. and obstructing justice. And Holly Wahlberg faces several charges of obstructing justice, as well as obstructing public and peace officers and breach of trust. Yeah. So these are all fairly serious things here. We talked about the OPP being involved, Willow. I just wonder, why is the OPP involved in this?

They received a request from the Ministry of Attorney General in late 2021. So just months after those complaints were filed to investigate it. And that's what led to this. So we've been kind of waiting for these charges for some time now. We've talked about some of these details, Willow. I guess we should just really establish, though, what is the root of the concern here, right? We've got these human rights complaints. We've got about some of these details, Willow. I guess we should just really establish, though, what is the root of the concern here, right? We've got these human rights complaints. We've got charges. First Nations leaders saying that trust with the police is gone.

So what is the main concern with how the Thunder Bay Police Service has been operating? Well, the concern, you know, has been an ongoing one for decades, but, you know, recent history going back to 2015 just really shows that the lack of trust comes from Indigenous people feeling that they're discriminated against because they're Indigenous, that they're not seen as human. And, you know, we've had so many reports and inquests and recommendations come out. And 2018 was such a pivotal year because we had the broken trust report come out and that declared that, you know, there was systemic racism within the force. You know, since 2018, the police board has been under a provincially appointed administrator for the second time because the province said it was in, you know, facing an emergency within the board. Like it just has not been able to handle itself. And if you don't have that trust in police oversight, you can't have any trust in the

service itself. So it's just Indigenous families feeling that they're not being taken seriously, they're not being heard. And it's been such an ugly climate for the city and particularly Indigenous peoples there who don't feel safe because of the amount of racism and violence that they in particular face and have faced for so long. People do not feel safe there, especially with the police. They do not feel that they're there to serve and protect them. Yeah, one of the reports said Indigenous people in Thunder Bay are both over-policed and under-policed at the same time in the city. Well, I mean, we know that incarceration rates are highest for Indigenous people, right? I mean, they're so disproportionately represented. And how can that be?

You never know if you're either going to get racially profiled and picked up or completely ignored and have, you know, your calls just not responded to at all. We'll be back in a minute. Well, I think we should talk about the death of one man in particular in Thunder Bay that really illustrates some of these concerns that people have when it comes to the Thunder Bay Police Service. So let's talk about Stacey DeBunkey. He was a 41-year-old man from Rainy River First Nation. What happened to Stacey? Stacey was found dead in a river in October of 2015.

There were several concerns. His brother, Brad DeBungie, and other family had a lot of concerns about how the police were handling his death investigation. Things like sending out a media release hours after his body was found, saying that, you know, there was no foul play suspected. The lead investigator in that case was found guilty under the Police Services Act a couple of years ago for neglect of duty and discreditable conduct for essentially just discriminating against Stacey because he was an Indigenous man and writing off his death as just another drunken Indian who rolled into the river and died. And this was the same time that the seven student inquest was happening. The seven student inquest looked into the deaths of seven students who were from the remote north and were in Thunder Bay to attend high school. They were

all found dead. Five of them were found dead in rivers or waterways in the city. And this really raised a lot of alarm bells. And many of those deaths were either ruled, you know, accidental or drowning or undetermined. And all of them ruled out foul play, despite concerns from families that, you know, there may have been something else happening there. So his family and the chief at the time of Rainy River First Nation filed complaints to the province's oversight agencies for policing. And those complaints really is really kind of what has led us here to today. As I understand here, Dabunke's death actually led to a report

in 2018 called Broken Trust. So let's talk about this, Willow. What did that report say about how the Thunder Bay Police handles cases, particularly those involving Indigenous people? That it was tainted with discrimination and prejudice and unconscious bias. It flagged nine sudden death investigations

to be reinvestigated. It recommended that more cases be reviewed and flagged for deficiencies. That happened. I mean, there were more than a thousand cases that were then reviewed by outside investigators. And they then flagged about 14, 15 cases for reinvestigation. I still remember that moment when Jerry McNeely was the director at the time and he wrote the report and at the press conference when he was reading it

and the statement when he made that he found that there was systemic racism within the thunder bay police service at an institutional level there was applause and standing ovation by the crowd overall i found that systemic racism exists in Thunder Bay Police Service at an institutional level. Because it had been the first time that they felt validated and heard after years and even decades of crying out that Indigenous people were not being treated fairly or right. I want to talk about two more cases that actually happened more recently. The first one is about Jenna Osberg.

She was a 21-year-old woman from Bearskin Lake First Nation. What happened to Jenna? Well, before Jenna was found dead in a residence, there had been two previous 911 calls made, and police did not respond to either of those calls. The third 911 call that was made was when her body had been found. And of course, police had responded to that. So that's being investigated right now by Special Investigations Unit in Ontario, which is, they're mandated to investigate any cases involving injury or death involving the police. So the family, the community, you know, of course, they're questioning why did no one respond to those first 911 calls? Would Jenna still be alive

today if someone had responded to one of those 911 calls? And that was that was a few months ago. And I also want to ask you about another situation that happened a few months ago, Willow. This is the disappearance and death of Mackenzie Munez. She was a 14-year-old girl from Niskanaga First Nation in the seven student inquest, Mackenzie was a 14 year old student who was in Thunder Bay for high school and she was reported missing by her family. Their concerns are the lack of response from police. They say it took them, you know, days to take them seriously. They had called them repeatedly and felt that they weren't being taken seriously. So of course they went ahead and started searching themselves before, you know, police jumped in a few days later to help out. And then her body was found in the same area of the city that she had reportedly been last seen. So concerns, you know, over the lack of appropriate response

from police in that situation. So Thunder Bay Police did actually bring in a new chief nearly a year ago now, right? His name is Darcy Fleury. He's a former RCMP officer and he's Métis. How much of a difference has his presence made on the force? Indigenous leaders are going to say no, nothing has changed. The police board chair spoke out, you know, in terms of, we were speaking of Mackenzie

Munoz's death and the fact that she had gone missing. And it started out as a missing persons report. And this was in December. The police board chair recently said that they recently implemented a new missing persons policy in November. So the month before, which does not make sense to me, because if you have a new policy in place and it's not working a month know, I think there's some frustration from the community that maybe they aren't taking seriously the concerns that, you know, that this has been ongoing for such a long time. And I'll just say that Chief Flurry has acknowledged the eroding trust in the force and has said that he and his team are committed to rebuilding confidence. One thing he has mentioned was that officers are wearing body cameras and the footage is reviewed randomly every month. Do we know if that's made a difference? I'm not sure if it's too soon to tell or not. I mean, if you still have families coming forward with complaints about how they're responding to their calls and saying, like, there's absolutely no trust right now in this service to handle these investigations competently.

So just lastly here, Willow, we don't have a timeline on what might happen with this call for the force to disband. But I guess either way, what would help restore the trust between police and Indigenous people in Thunder Bay? Like, what have you been hearing? You know, people need to feel like they're being heard and taken seriously and validated. You know, Chief Fleury did say, following Monday's press conference, he did acknowledge that they could be doing better at things like communicating with families.

And I think those things, you know, like can kind of go a long way. But I mean, that's not going to fix the systemic issues too. And I'm not really sure what's going to fix it at this point. Willow, thank you so much for taking the time to be here today. Thanks for having me. That's it for today. I'm Maina Karaman-Wilms. Our intern is Raisa Alibi. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Adrienne Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor.

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