“The Thunder Bay Police Service has turned into a cold-case factory.”
This condemnation from Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation was made amid what are just the most recent calls to disband the police service. The now-regular cries to rid the municipality of this systemically racist police force is a testament to its continued corruption and brutality.
The latest scandal is that former Chief of Police Sylvie Hauth and police service lawyer Holly Walbourne are being charged by the Ontario Provincial Police with misconduct in the form of “practicing deception” with the Police Board, and obstruction of justice. Meanwhile, the unsolved deaths of Indigenous people pile up. Since 2018, there have been 13 cases that needed to be reinvestigated due to the racism of the officers involved. But this is just the tip of the iceberg.
In the last 10 years, there has been a rapid slide to corruption and incompetence on the part of the TBPS. Problems like missing evidence and the improper securing of the scene of a crime with human remains have become typical. These are more than mere mistakes, since even the most inept constable would have had the most basic training in these matters.
It’s common for murder victims’ cash and credit cards to be stolen, with their use conveniently time-stamped well after the arrival of police. These thefts have never been pinned on anyone, but Thunder Bay residents know who the culprits are. Likewise, it’s an open secret that racist thugs have been going around the city in the evenings and early morning harassing, intimidating, and killing young Indigenous people. Some speculate that off-duty cops are behind the attacks. In any case, Thunder Bay police are in no hurry to stop them.
TBPS have asked for time to enact changes, but there is no changing a body that is so thoroughly rotten. For a long time, the police have behaved as if they’re the rulers of the city, engaging in nepotism, embezzlement, and sex-trafficking rings. It’s no wonder that the general public as well as the Nishnawbe Aski Nation and other Northern Ontario First Nation Chiefs are simply asking for the TBPS to be disbanded.
However, that would mean that the TBPS would be replaced by the Ontario Provincial Police, which is no solution when OPP officers have been caught beating a Metis man in their custody, and abandoning an Ojibway man by the side of the highway.
The TBPS may be particularly corrupt and racist, but this is only a difference of degree from other police services. Whether it’s police in Edmonton and Calgary violently putting down peaceful student protests, or the Toronto police colluding in an attempt to convict an innocent man, every day the police demonstrate that they do not exist to “protect and serve”. Their role is to defend the capitalist state, and uphold oppression and exploitation. And the racism and corruption of the police is just a reflection of the rot of the system that they defend. They’re the attack dogs of the capitalists, and in Thunder Bay they’ve been let off-leash. To end police oppression, we must bring down their masters.
