Indigenous community reels after stabbing attacks in Canada

People gather at a vigil in honor of the victims of a mass stabbing incident at James Smith Cree Nation and Weldon, Saskatchewan, in front of City Hall in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, on Sept. 7, 2022. (AP)
People gather at a vigil in honor of the victims of a mass stabbing incident at James Smith Cree Nation and Weldon, Saskatchewan, in front of City Hall in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, on Sept. 7, 2022. (AP)

Summary

  • Residents of the James Smith Cree Nation try to come together in the wake of a bloody rampage that killed 10 and injured 18

On a recent day in this small community on the Canadian prairie, people gathered in the school gym listening to traditional indigenous drums and mournful music at back-to-back funerals. Outside, people huddled in groups, crying and smoking.

It has been two weeks since this territory of 2,000 people became the scene of one of the worst mass killings in Canadian history. Two brothers allegedly went on a rampage that left 10 dead and 18 injured. Locals said there are still many unanswered questions about what triggered the attacks, how they unfolded and why law enforcement failed to track down one of the brothers, a violent offender, after he disappeared in May.

The brothers, Myles and Damien Sanderson, began their stabbing spree the morning of Sept. 4, police said. Damien Sanderson, 31, was found dead on Sept. 5 of wounds that the police said weren’t self-inflicted, and his brother, Myles Sanderson, 32, was located and captured by police two days later. He was pronounced dead at a Saskatchewan hospital after suffering “medical distress," according to police.

“It was so horrific, I kept asking my elders, ‘What am I supposed to do?’" said Chief Wally Burns, one of the reserve’s leaders. “Why did this happen? What is the meaning?"

Chiefs and community leaders said it isn’t clear what triggered the violent outburst, and police so far haven’t offered a motive. They said Myles Sanderson, who was from the reserve, knew some of his victims—Earl Burns was the father of Myles’s common-law spouse, Vanessa Burns—but said some of the other attacks were random. Wesley Petterson, a man in the nearby town of Weldon who had no connection to the reserve, also was killed, police said.

James Smith Cree Nation officials also want to know why parole officers never informed them that Myles Sanderson, who had a history of violent and criminal behavior, according to parole documents and people who knew him, was at large, said Chief Calvin Sanderson, leader of the Chakastaypasin band on the reserve. He isn’t related to Myles and Damien Sanderson.

James Smith Cree Nation officials also said that there are no police stationed on the reserve, and after the first 911 call, it took 40 minutes for two officers to arrive from the town of Melfort, almost 30 miles away.

Chief Sanderson and other leaders are calling for a tribal police force that could fill the gap when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada’s federal police force, isn’t available. They are also asking for funding to establish drug-addiction treatment centers on the reserve and cultural programs to reconnect youths with their traditions.

A Parole Board of Canada document said that Myles Sanderson grew up “in an environment involving physical abuse, domestic violence and instability." The young Myles watched his father beat his girlfriend. He lived for a little while with grandparents in what the parole report described as “an abusive environment." He started drinking when he was 12 years old and using cocaine when he was 14, the report said.

The brothers’ father, Manny Sanderson, approached through family members, declined to make himself available for comment about his sons or the killings.

The parole board’s report said that Myles Sanderson had been convicted 59 times. According to the document, he once attacked two people with a fork and beat a man until he was lying unconscious in a ditch. He threw concrete bricks through the windshield of his common-law partner’s car and repeatedly kicked a police officer in the face and in the head while he was handcuffed, the report said.

He was released from prison in February, despite a parole board report that found that there was a good chance he would reoffend. In May, he stopped reporting to his parole officer and disappeared. A spokeswoman for the Saskatchewan RCMP said the police force didn’t actively look for Myles Sanderson after he went missing.

A spokesperson for the Parole Board declined to comment on the specifics of Myles Sanderson’s release but said it would investigate the circumstances.

Other questions surround Myles’s brother, Damien. His body was in the tall grass just yards from the reserve home of Chief Calvin Sanderson.

The RCMP wouldn’t discuss specific details of the case. People who spoke to some of the injured people said Damien tried to stop his brother and may have saved a few lives before he, too, was killed.

The killings sparked a global outpouring of support. Queen Elizabeth II sent condolences to the victims, one of her last official acts before her death. “I mourn with all Canadians at this tragic time," she wrote in a note that was posted on the royal family’s social-media accounts.

The killings shocked a country that in recent years has worked to make amends for its historical treatment of indigenous people. In July, the pope came to Canada and apologized for the Catholic Church’s role in the efforts to assimilate indigenous people into white culture by forcing them into so-called residential schools, a practice he said amounted to genocide. That visit was prompted by the discovery last year of more than 200 unmarked graves of indigenous people at a residential school in the province of British Columbia.

Sol Sanderson, who isn’t related to the brothers but is a former chief of one of three Cree tribal bands that make up James Smith Cree Nation, said indigenous groups have suffered for decades from entrenched social problems and drug abuse. The ills, he said, are the result of Canada’s history of uprooting and trying to assimilate indigenous people.

Since the killings here, well-wishers, volunteers and journalists have descended on James Smith Cree Nation, a territory about the size of the New York City borough of Staten Island and located 300 miles north of Montana. The air is thick with the dust that cars, SUVs and trucks kick up as they drive over the unpaved roads that lead to the reserve. The red and blue Bernard Constant Community School has become the drop-off point for food and supply donations.

In the school’s kitchen, local resident Fran Burns, who said she lost three cousins in the attacks, marshaled a team of volunteers to cut the elk and moose meat that was brought in by hunters from the nearby pastures. The cooks made elk stew, fried moose steaks and put together bologna and cheese sandwiches.

She said she had been working herself to exhaustion since the killings to ensure that the people at the wakes and funerals get fed.

“This is our therapy," she said. “We each take a moment for ourselves when we can go outside and have a little cry, but this is really how we help ourselves."

One of the kitchen helpers and Fran Burns’s niece, Michelle Burns, said her uncle, Earl Burns, was killed in the attacks. She knew the Sanderson brothers growing up on the reserve. Myles, she said, was a joker who grew more serious and angry as he got older.

According to the RCMP’s official timeline of the crimes, the first 911 call came in at 5:40 a.m. local time on Sept. 4. Someone reported that there had been a stabbing on the reserve. Ninety minutes after the first emergency call, the RCMP sent out a dangerous-persons alert, warning about two suspects who had fled in a black SUV.

Earl Burns, the father of Myles Sanderson’s common-law spouse and a military veteran, fought off the attacks to protect his family, said people who spoke to his family. Instead of staying at home when the brothers left, Earl Burns jumped into the school bus he drove for the James Smith community and tried to chase down the brothers until he succumbed to his wounds, said Grand Chief David Gamble, a family friend and head of the Saskatchewan First Nations Veterans Association.

Byron Daniels said he was in his house that morning when he heard banging on this door. He told his wife to ignore it and refused to answer. Later, Mr. Daniels found a bloody handprint on his screen door. Mr. Daniels said he is so shaken by the attacks that even now he crawls out of a window in his house rather than using the door.

It took almost four days after the attack for police to find Myles Sanderson. The police forced him off the road while he was driving a stolen white Chevrolet Avalanche.

Though he was taken alive, Mr. Sanderson went into “medical distress" soon after, said Rhonda Blackmore, Saskatchewan commander of the RCMP. He was pronounced dead at a hospital in the city of Saskatoon.

At the reserve, there were tipis set up to provide families space to be together, and tents were being used by therapists to counsel grieving families. An area on the edge of the field had been blocked off for sweat lodges, the sites of healing ceremonies.

Ron Paul, a community elder, said the community has begun to cleanse the killing sites ritually. The people will pay an emotional toll for years to come, he said.

“The physical wounds will heal, but the other ones will last a long time," he said. “Some people will go to their graves before those heal."

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text

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