![]() ![]() The RCMP commissioner, Brenda Lucki, speaks with victims’ family members at an event after the mass stabbing at James Smith Cree Nation, Saskatchewan. ![]() Police have not publicly speculated on what triggered the eruption of violence in which Sanderson killed 10 people aged between 23 and 78 in the James Smith Cree Nation, an Indigenous community in northern Saskatchewan, and the neighbouring village of Weldon.Īfter the attacks, Sanderson remained at large for four days, with local communities on edge amid a string of false sightings.Īs officers searched for Sanderson, the RCMP was itself the subject of a sprawling public inquiry over its response to another mass killing on the other side of the country, when a lone gunman shot and killed 22 people over the course of 12 hours in rural Nova Scotia. “In many ways, the RCMP has lurched from crisis to crisis,” said Kent Roach, professor of law at the University of Toronto. National media have repeatedly pressed the force after the police said they would not release autopsy results.Īnd it emerged that – despite the fact that earlier in the summer an arrest warrant had been issued for Sanderson on unrelated charges – police do not appear to have been searching for him until he launched his stabbing spree on 4 September. In the days since Sanderson’s death, questions over police actions and communication with the public have continued to mount. These public communication fumbles – and a troubled legacy of scandals, lawsuits and policing failures – have renewed longstanding questions over the force’s structure. “I have never seen a more egregious case of burying the lede,” tweeted Siobhan Morris of CTV News.Īfter two mass killings in two years – both among the worst in the country’s history –the institutional opaqueness of Canada’s national police force has once again become the focus of criticism. Reporters covering the press conference were in disbelief. It was nearly five minutes after announcing his arrest that Blackmore added that Sanderson had died after he went into “medical distress” and was transported to hospital. ![]()
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