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THUNDER BAY — The acting police chief of the Thunder Bay Police Service acknowledged there were failures at multiple levels within the service when dealing with Indigenous people at the time of Don Mamakwa and Roland McKay’s deaths, and while there has been progress made since 2014, a lack of sustainable funding continues to create challenges for policing in the city.
Taddeo then pointed to the city’s high crime rate, with Thunder Bay having the highest crime severity index in all of Canada, and the challenges that come with policing an area that is funded based on a population much larger than the census data indicates. Taddeo said the police service is open to criticism and exploring ways to improve but added: “it makes no sense to have solutions based on capacity issues that we can’t deal with.”
“We were setting ourselves up to arrest these people again for having an addiction,” Taddeo said, referring to probation orders requiring individuals abstain from substances. “We have gotten our numbers down. People who shouldn’t be in cells aren’t in cells anymore. But they are moving to the emergency department.”
The SIU found no grounds to charge any of the involved officers following Mamakwa and McKay’s deaths. “Flippant comments, for example, or not following up on medications or things of that nature, now are treated much more seriously than what is depicted in the video, as well as the checks and balances of the watch commander to ensure things don’t slip through the cracks and people aren’t just treated as an intoxicated person,” he said.
Taddeo also highlighted other changes implemented by the police service to create more transparency and accountability, such as body-worn cameras for officers, which he referenced several times during his testimony.
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