Death of Colten Boushie

Colten Boushie (October 31, 1993 – August 9, 2016) was a 22-year-old Indigenous man of the Cree Red Pheasant First Nation who was fatally shot on a rural Saskatchewan farm by its owner, Gerald Stanley. Stanley stood trial for second-degree murder and for a lesser charge of manslaughter, but was ultimately acquitted in February 2018.

Boushie was a resident of the Cree Red Pheasant First Nation. After getting a flat tire, he and four friends drove to a farmhouse near Biggar, Saskatchewan, owned by Stanley. They had been drinking and had earlier tried to break in to a truck at another farm. One of the group tried to steal an ATV on the property while Stanley and his son were outside. Stanley's son ran to the vehicle and used a hammer to smash the windshield. The people in the SUV attempted to take off and crashed their vehicle into one of Stanley's cars. Stanley reacted by going into his home, returning with a TT-30 (Tokarev) handgun, and firing two shots into the air. Two of the individuals in the SUV fled on foot, while Boushie moved to the front seat. Stanley then approached the SUV – with Boushie in the driver's seat – when the gun discharged. Boushie was shot in the neck just below the ear and died instantly. Stanley's defence claimed the shot was an accident and the gun's trigger was not pulled. Instead, the defence argued a third round loaded into the magazine was fired, yet failed to detonate, precipitating a hang fire.

The circumstances of the shooting, the RCMP investigation, the trial, and the verdict are flashpoints of controversy in Canada. The case drew significant attention, sparking protests and provoking debates about racism in Saskatchewan and across Canada. People who supported Stanley generally perceived the trial as fair, given the circumstances of events leading up to the shooting. Supporters of the Boushie family felt the trial was unfair due to the selection of what appeared to be an all-white jury. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Minister of Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould denounced the verdict. Critics scorned these comments for politicizing the trial and discrediting the Canadian judiciary system. The mayor of Saskatoon, Charlie Clark, said the trial and its aftermath represented "a defining moment for this community and this country".

Legislation eliminating peremptory challenges from jury selection was enacted in 2019 and upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada in the October 2020 case R v Chouhan. Two 2021 reports by the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police found that RCMP's death notification to Boushie's family had been discriminatory and noted serious investigative and communications failures in an otherwise professional response.

Background Colten Boushie (October 31, 1993 – August 9, 2016) was a resident of the Cree Red Pheasant First Nation of Saskatchewan. at the Maymont River. Wuttunee's grey 2003 Ford Escape SUV got a flat tire. They then drove on to Gerald Stanley's property near Biggar, Saskatchewan, in the Rural Municipality of Glenside No. 377, which is about from their home. Sheldon chased them away and smashed the SUV's windshield with a hammer. It "crashed into Stanley's wife's car and came to a halt".

Stanley then approached the SUV with Boushie in the driver's seat and Jackson and Wuttunee in the back. Stanley would later testify he saw the lawnmower his wife was using and thought that she had been run over. He reached in with his left hand to turn off the ignition while holding his handgun in his right hand. The RCMP later found a loaded .22-calibre rifle near Boushie's body. The person initially in charge of the investigation was a junior constable; no forensic experts were brought in. The Ford Escape SUV in which Boushie was killed, was "left uncovered, its doors open, for two rainy days, washing away evidence".

This release explained that the witnesses to Boushie's killing were taken into custody "as part of a related theft investigation". The FSIN called for a review of the RCMP's communication policies and writing guidelines. The FSIN said that the "RCMP news release was biased and not in line with the relationship the FSIN and the RCMP have been building with measures such as the RCMP FSIN Partnership Protocol".

The FSIN blamed the RCMP's August 10 statement for "racially charged social media posts" The RCMP Superintendent held a press conference asking "residents to put their guns away".

Three days after the shooting, on August 12, 2016, CBC News reported that the "event had stimulated a lot of discussion on various social media platforms". Paul Dornstauder, CBC's Executive Producer for Radio Current Affairs in Saskatchewan, described how "there was a vigorous and at times rancorous debate about what had happened and why, some of which was racist".

The article was the subject of investigation by CBC's ombudsman, following CBC's receipt of 25 complaints from readers concerned that "it was wrong of CBC News to publish this article, that it fed into a racist argument about Indigenous peoples that saw Mr. Boushie as a menace. It was seen as an endorsement of the use of violence by some readers." One complainant asserted that the article mistakenly linked "property rights" to Boushie's death. The complainant called the article "irresponsible and damaging" as it "could fan racist sentiment". The article has since been revised. Dornstauder described "this story as having had an electrifying effect in Saskatchewan". It is "complex and controversial", requiring sensitivity and "likely will continue to for some time to come". More than five hundred comments representing both sides of the debate appeared on Wall's Facebook page in response to his remarks.

Robert Innes, a University of Saskatchewan professor, described the "racial tension" in Saskatchewan as a "tinder box" with "some farmers" "blaming First Nations people for rural crime. Their mentality is to protect their property."

Trial

The trial for second-degree murder took place from January 30, 2018, The pool which was almost double the normal size was enlarged to help secure a more representative jury, though only 204 of the 750 individuals who were summoned actually showed up. By February 8, 2018, the jurors were deliberating on a verdict behind closed doors.

During Judge Popescul's charge to the jury, he instructed them:

You must not find Gerald Stanley guilty unless you are sure he is guilty. Even if you believe that Mr. Stanley is probably guilty or likely guilty, that is not sufficient. In those circumstances, you must give the benefit of the doubt to Mr. Stanley and find him not guilty because the Crown has failed to satisfy you of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

If you have a reasonable doubt about Mr. Stanley's guilt arising from the evidence, the absence of the evidence, or the credibility or the reliability of one or more of the witnesses then you must find him not guilty. In short, the presumption of innocence applies at the beginning and continues throughout the trial, unless you are satisfied after considering the whole of the evidence that the Crown has displaced the presumption of innocence by proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

"Hang fire" defence The defence case relied heavily on the assertion that the fatal shot was unintentional and the result of a hang fire. The casing from the fatal shot had an unusual bulge which testing of the gun could not reproduce.

The gun used was a 1947 Tokarev T33 with surplus military ammunition from 1953. The ammunition had been stored in an unheated shed where the temperature varied between and . Experts concluded nevertheless that the gun was functioning properly and a misfire could not be replicated during testing. Other rallies and vigils took place in Battleford, Winnipeg, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Toronto, and Ottawa to challenge the verdict.

In response to the verdict, Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations's Vice-chief David Pratt, challenged the jury selection system, saying that "defence counsel used peremptory challenges to block every potential juror who appeared to be Indigenous". Jagmeet Singh, a criminal defence lawyer and the Leader of the New Democratic Party, told reporters on February 13 that "justice was not served for Colten Boushie". Lisa Raitt, Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party, Rob Nicholson, and other Conservatives also criticised comments by Trudeau and Wilson-Raybould.

At a press conference hosted by Saskatoon Tribal Council, Mayor Clark described the "high-profile trial and its aftermath—which included rallies across Canada—represent a defining moment for this community and this country. A defining moment for our city, our province, our country, where we decide what kind of country we're going to be." Many chiefs across Saskatchewan, including northern communities, travelled to Saskatoon to attend the rally. About 200 people gathered at Toronto's Nathan Phillips Square to protest the verdict that day. On February 12, over 300 people gathered to march from Calgary City Hall to Reconciliation Bridge, in temperatures and wind chill that felt like , to show support for Colten Boushie's family.

By February 11, Colten Boushie's mother Debbie Baptiste, his cousin Jade Tootoosis, and uncle Alvin had travelled to Ottawa from their remote community for potential meetings with Wilson-Raybould, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and other ministers, to advocate for justice. They called for "an end to peremptory challenges in jury selection, which were used in Mr. Stanley's trial to block every potential juror who appeared to be Indigenous". They are also challenging "a number of systemic problems in the justice system, as well as specific complaints arising from the way Mr. Boushie's death was investigated and prosecuted".

On February 28, the Justice for our Stolen Children Camp was set up on Wascana Park in Regina in response to the death of Colten Boushie and Tina Fontaine.

nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up, a documentary film by Tasha Hubbard about the Colten Boushie case, won the award for Best Canadian Feature Documentary at the 2019 Hot Docs Canadian International Film Festival, and the Colin Low Award for Best Canadian Documentary at the 2019 DOXA Documentary Film Festival.

Post-trial developments

Legislative changes In response to controversy over how defendant's legal team used peremptory challenge to remove all Indigenous jurors from the jury pool and get what seemed to be an all-white jury, the federal government passed Bill C-75, which eliminated peremptory challenges during jury selection. The law came into effect in September 2019. In October 2020, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in R v Chouhan that the legislation was constitutional, as well as its retroactive application to jury selection.

Civilian Review and Complaints Commission reports into RCMP conduct In March 2021, the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC) for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police released two reports on the conduct of the RCMP during the case. One of the reports stemmed from an appeal by the Boushie family of a 2017 RCMP internal investigation into the case in which it mostly cleared itself. Concurrent to handling the appeal the CRCC launched its own public interest investigation to produce a second report. Both reports were completed in 2020 but the release was delayed so that the RCMP could review and reply to the reports. The CRCC found that the way that Boushie's family were notified of his death was discriminatory, but that other RCMP actions were not racially motivated. It also found that with the exception of serious shortfalls in the investigation and the dealings with Boushie's family, the RCMP had otherwise acted professionally and reasonably.

The CRCC found that surrounding the Boushie home with cars, training lights on the home, and approaching the home with carbines drawn was an unreasonable approach to the risk that one of Boushie's companions may have been there and armed. The CRCC also found that a subsequent search of the home violated the Charter, however it found no evidence that the RCMP's tactical decisions or illegal search were racially motivated. This was contested by the Boushie family's lawyer, who said that a similar overreaction would not have occurred to a non-Indigenous family. However, the CRCC did find that the armed, tactical approach was a poor way to deliver the death notification. Asking whether Boushie's mother had been drinking and smelling her breath for alcohol after she took her son's death poorly was found to be insensitive and discriminatory. The CRCC also criticized the RCMP's later decision to update Boushie's mother on the investigation during her son's wake as insensitive.

RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki agreed with the CRCC's discrimination ruling for the death notification, accepted most of the report's findings such as those on poor handling of evidence and witnesses, and poor communications policies. She committed to fix the issues raised by measures such as new operational guidance, changes to the force's operational manual, and increased cultural awareness training. Lucki contested some aspects of the CRCC report, such as the tactical approach they took for the death notification because of perceived risk from Boushie's companion. The CRCC said Commissioner Lucki's response to their reports failed to take responsibility for the issues at the heart of the report and focused on minor staffing considerations. The National Police Federation, a police union representing over 20,000 RCMP officers condemned the CRCC report and RCMP leadership for accepting some of the reports' recommendations for disrespecting the RCMP and bringing its professionalism into question.