FSIN Chief Bobby Cameron sits beside Kyla Frenchman (second from left) at a press conference Friday morning. (screenshot/FSIN media conference)

By Susan McNeil

Tanner Brass death

FSIN does not accept report findings into P.A. baby’s death despite physical evidence

May 19, 2023 | 12:38 PM

The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) said it does not accept the findings of the Public Complaints Commission (PCC) report into the death of 13-month-old Tanner Brass in Prince Albert despite physical evidence to the contrary.

At a media call Friday morning, the organization said the inconsistencies between the words of Kyla Frenchman, Tanner’s mother, and the evidence reviewed by the PCC are not fully transparent and they were not involved in the investigation.

“First Nations people on our traditional territories, coast to coast to coast, we don’t lie when it comes to tragedies like this. We feel it, we live it, we experience it, we breathe it,” said Chief Bobby Cameron.

He then took 19 seconds to walk across the room and back, saying that is how long it would have taken the two officers to check on the baby.

According to the PCC findings, the officers erred when they did not enter the home without a warrant to check on Tanner.

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The officers believed that because there was no warm place to take his mother, Tanner would be better off with his father, said the report.

Tanner Brass was just 13 months old when he died in 2022. (file photo)

Frenchman was taken to the jail where she stayed overnight, something she has stated was an arrest, but the report said was because there was no room in the women’s shelter and she would have been left outside in the cold if they hadn’t.

The report also said she agreed to go.

Frenchman was in attendance at the media conference but spoke through her lawyer, Eleanore Sunchild.

“What happened to Kyla Frenchmen and her child, baby Tanner, is a travesty and it is yet another miscarriage of justice in this province and this country,” said Sunchild.

She said the variations between what Frenchman said and what the report said are the reasons there should be a full inquiry into the matter.

“There are definitely two different versions here; Kyla’s and that of the report,” she added.

While the PCC report gives some details into the timeline of events in Tanner’s death, his father, Kaij Brass, has not yet been convicted and will be tried on a charge of second-degree murder in February 2024.

He has elected to be tried by judge alone in Prince Albert Provincial Court and remains in custody.

The FSIN and Sunchild promise there will be future legal action and said that Frenchman will be suing the Prince Albert Police Service (PAPS).

Cameron said the FSIN is demanding to have access to the video and audio recordings used by the PCC when it conducted its investigation.

While they were glad to see the announcement of the retirement of Chief Jonathan Bergen on Thursday, they are also demanding the two officers be fired and charged.

Laying criminal charges is not something the report recommended.

The autopsy on Tanner could not confirm his exact time of death and whether it was after Frenchman left the home – and before she called 911 – or after the first time police went to the house.

The FSIN asserts that the reason officers did not go into the home and check on Tanner’s welfare is because of racism and said they would have done so had the mother been white.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com