A Regional First Nation Chief is speaking out on the arrest and altercation of Athabasca Chipewayan Chief Allan Adam and RCMP after new video surfaced last night (June 11) and has been obtained by PrinceGeorgeMatters.
Athabasca Chipewayan Chief Allan Adam said in a news release on June 6 that he, his wife and his niece were getting into his truck in the Peter Pond Mall in downtown Fort McMurray early on March 10 when officers confronted him.
The RCMP said Adam's truck had expired plates and the video shows Adam getting in and out of the vehicle, aggressively removing his coat and using expletives as he complains about being harassed by police.
Adam says the tags on his truck weren't up-to-date, but instead of simply reminding him to renew the tags and let him take a taxi home, he claims the officers 'used the occasion to beat and arrest' him' in front of family and a number of witnesses in the parking lot.'
An already tense situation deteriorates when a second officer pulls up, charges at Adam, tackles him to the ground and punches him in the head.
The chief, who was charged with resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer, was left bloodied and Alberta's police watchdog agency is now investigating
British Columbia Assembly of First Nations (BCAFN) Regional Chief, Terry Teegee, who also served as Tribal Chief of the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council from 2012 to 2018, says what he saw in the video was 'maddening.'
"I think it's really frustrating to once again see that there's excessive use of force and whether this is a profiling incident for Chief Allan Adam, that could be another matter," Teegee said in an interview with PrinceGeorgeMatters.
"If being a case of just expired insurance, did they really need to, was it really necessary to use that much force and to you know, speak to his wife who was driving and to the chief who was in the passenger side, I think that it really demonstrates the use of force. When I first saw it, I think really I was angered. It was maddening to see once again the excessive use of force in the situation that could have been handled a lot differently and in a better way."
"When there are situations like this, I think it shows that perhaps the police are not accessing the situation properly and it certainly comes to me that there needs to be more training and de-escalation of certain situations. More often than not, the person is, gets injured or succumbs to some kind of injury. We've seen it here recently with the case and arrest of Everett Patrick, we've seen it in the case in the parking lot just a few years ago of Dale Culver and it's frustrating, angered and I think many First Nations feel that way and there is certainly a distrust with the RCMP."
Teegee says all forms of government need to look into the policing system as a whole, saying certain actions such as chokeholds and police dogs also need to be looked at.
"I think the whole policing system in Canada needs an overhaul," he said.
"I mean, it's not good enough to just have a patchwork of fixing certain things. I think we really got to know and understand what the police force is used for.
"Nobody needs to get hurt over not having insurance."
The Athabasca Chipewayan First Nation says Adam's lawyer, Brian Beresh, has filed a court motion to have criminal charges stayed over infringements of Adam's charter rights.
"These are now matters of public record," the band's statement said. "All of this resulted from an expired license plate tag. The video speaks for itself."
Adam held a news conference last weekend to raise issues about the arrest.
"Every time our people do wrong ... (the RCMP) always seem to use excessive force and that has to stop," he said. "Enough is enough."
Wood Buffalo RCMP said, in a statement, the dash-cam video had been reviewed by supervisors and "it was determined that the members' actions were reasonable and did not meet the threshold for an external investigation."
Adam believes the situation could have been easily resolved with authorities simply notifying him that he needed to update his tags.
"The license plate tags on my truck had recently expired and while the situation could have easily been resolved by simply reminding us to renew the tags and take a taxi home, officers used the occasion to beat and arrest me in front of family and a number of witnesses in the parking lot," he said.
"What happened to me is not unusual or shocking. This happens every day to black, brown, low income and Indigenous people across Canada. Despite only representing five per cent of the population, Indigenous Canadians make up over 30 per cent of the prison population here. Structural racism, out of date policing methods and the diminished socio-economic status of Indigenous Canadians means that we rarely have a fighting chance in our judicial and policing system."
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Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Adam Allan after he says police beat him when they pulled him over for expired insurance tags. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the video 'shocking' this morning (June 12) and is calling for an independent, transparent investigation.
"I think everyone who has seen this video has serious questions about what exactly happened, about how it happened this way and about the use of force that we saw," Trudeau said of the video.
The RCMP dash-camera video was released publicly as part of a court application to get criminal charges against Chief Allan Adam stayed.
It shows an RCMP officer charging at an agitated Adam, tackling him to the ground and punching him in the head.
Trudeau says he knows this is not an isolated incident and that far too many Black Canadians and Indigenous people do not feel safe around police.
"It's unacceptable and as governments, we have to change that," he said.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said she found the images in the video "incredibly disturbing."
She echoed Trudeau's calls for the investigation into this incident to be independent while also acknowledging that systemic discrimination exists in all institutions in Canada, including within police forces.
"This is a moment in our country when we need to confront the really horrible reality that systemic racism exists here in Canada, anti-Black racism exists in Canada, anti-Indigenous racism exists in Canada. It is systemic," she said.
"We need to acknowledge that, we need to confront that and we need to work really hard together to end that."
Public Safety Minister Bill Blair issued a statement saying Canadians deserve answers about how this particular incident occurred, stressing the critical need for the investigation to come to timely and thorough conclusions.
"We have been clear that we will work with Indigenous partners and communities as well as racialized Canadians to ensure that our agencies serve without bias and with a commitment to justice for everyone."
Maintaining public trust in Canada's police forces requires "rigorous accountability," Blair added.
- with files from The Canadian Press
