Gerald Stanley’s acquittal in fatal shooting of Indigenous man met with demand for #Justice4Colten
On Saturday, Feb. 17, a large crowd gathered in front of Guelph’s City Hall to protest the acquittal of Gerald Stanley. In August 2016, Stanley shot and killed 22-year-old Colten Boushie for trespassing on his property.
According to CBC, Stanley was acquitted because he claimed that the gun went off accidentally. Bobby Cameron, chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, was skeptical as he stated that, “in this day and age, when someone can get away with killing somebody, when someone can get away with saying, ‘I accidentally walked to the storage shed, I accidentally grabbed a gun out of the storage box, and I accidentally walked back to the car and then I accidentally raised my arm in level with the late Colten Boushie’s head, then my finger accidentally pushed the trigger’ — what a bunch of garbage.”
The rally in downtown Guelph aimed to express outrage at what Boushie’s death means for Indigenous Peoples across Canada, and to remind those listening that this is not an isolated incident. “The message that goes out into the world,” said Anishinaabe elder Jan Sherman, “is that this will not be tolerated in our society any longer.”
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Candles, flowers, and a graduation photo of 22-year-old Boushie were laid in the middle of the circle of protesters.
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Brad Evoy, center, posed this thought-provoking question: “How many more will we accept? How many more will we have rallies for?… If I sound angry, it’s because I am.”
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Xicotencatl Lopez, the 16-year-old organizer of the event, reminded the crowd that the death of Indigenous Peoples is not an uncommon occurrence. “When I first heard the story of Colten Boushie I was unsurprised,” Lopez said. “Horrified, but unsurprised.”
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Amber Holmes, co-founder of the Indigenous Learning Circle in Guelph, spoke to the crowd. “What happened to Colten is genocide,” she said. “It’s just another form of genocide.”
[trx_infobox style=”regular” closeable=”no” icon=”icon-pin” color=”#131212″ bg_color=”#FFFFFF” top=”inherit” bottom=”inherit” left=”inherit” right=”inherit”]Since the protest for Boushie, Raymond Cormier was acquitted for the death of Tina Fontaine. The body of the 15-year-old from Sagkeeng First Nation in Manitoba was found in August 2014 wrapped in a duvet. The cause of her death was not determined because DNA evidence was washed away by the river, however, a pathologist explained that the method of disposal of the body was suspicious. Cormier was arrested in December 2015, based on multiple recordings of him mentioning the death of the girl, and witness statements claiming he had the same duvet that she was found in. According to the CBC, the jury acquitted Cormier under the claim that there had been “selective interpretations of statements” in the recordings and that the “lack of a cause of death made it impossible to know that Tina died from an unlawful act.” A rally for Fontaine was held on Feb. 25 in Market Square.[/trx_infobox]
Photo by Leslie Thompson/The Ontarion