By Kelly Malone

RCMP investigating officer after derogatory comments about First Nation

Sep 18, 2014 | 7:14 AM

A derogatory online comment about people in a northern Saskatchewan First Nation community has led the RCMP to look into one of its own officers.

On Monday, an article was shared on a Facebook page about an incident at the Sucker River Reserve. The comment, allegedly posted by Cst. Anthony Setlack, said “all drunk uneducated animals shooting at each other.”

RCMP spokesperson Craig Cleary said they are looking into the comment.

“We do have policy governing conduct and the use of social networking. The RCMP itself is held to a higher standard by the public that we serve and the use of the Internet for social networking and social media applications must align with those same standards,” Cleary explained.

“Our policy covers members' conduct both on and off duty.”

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Setlack does not work in the community that was mentioned in the article posted. The article was about shots fired last Saturday on the Sucker River Reserve.

Hearing about the comment was disappointing to recently retired First Nations police officer Ernie Louttit.

“If you are getting that feeling that the people in your areas are animals, you need to leave it,” Louttit said.

“If you are a front-line officer and you begin to hate the people you police you need to move because that's not why you signed up.”

Louttit was an officer with the Saskatoon police during the Stonechild inquiry and the starlight tour when police officers were charged after driving Darrell Night outside of city limits and leaving him to walk back to town. Since then, the Saskatoon Police, Saskatchewan RCMP, and the province's aboriginal communities have worked to repair the historically damaged relationship.

Louttit said, even with those efforts, stereotypes and racism can remain.

“That issue of stereotyping everybody does it no matter where you work or who you are,” he said.

“Will you be able absolutely hire an entire police force that doesn't have one person that harbours racist thoughts? I think statistically it's impossible.”

In his experience, Louttit added that the majority of officers, either police or RCMP, have not expressed those types of feelings.

“An incident like this, while it's troubling, I don't think reflects all the relationships. Most of the police forces I've dealt with have taken great strides to improve the relationship with First Nations communities ,” he said.

“A lot of policemen, if they are (hearing about) this are going to go 'woah I don't want to be that guy ever'. So already hopefully there is change being made.”

As for the officer, Louttit said that the comment likely has caused damage to those hard fought relationships and there should be consequences.

“I don't know this officer, I don't know what the RCMP are doing… but the damage is done. He needs to learn from that and hopefully he does,” Louttit explained.

“But as an organization the police also have to learn from that and make an example of this particular case and tell officers that if you don't want to be in the light don't make disparaging comments about any community you police.”

When it comes to policing in northern communities and First Nation communities, La Ronge Mayor Thomas Sierzycki said his experience has been largely positive. That is why he was shocked when he saw the comment within his own news feed.

“Of course anytime that you are on Facebook there are comments where people may not necessarily think before they post… In today's social media as soon as you do comment it's out there for anyone to see,” he said.

“I wanted to defend the community that this incident happened in just for the fact there are great people in all our communities in the North and at time bad things happen in communities but it happens across the province and across Canada.”

It was especially offensive to him he said because knows personally the “great resilient people” living in the community.

“Until we are all understanding of one another and realize the implications of what comments like that can dictate then I don't think we are moving forward as a society,” he said, adding that he hopes Setlack has learned a lesson.

“Hopefully, in a profession that may be intertwined and active in a community, we think twice before we comment. We all have difficult jobs in whatever aspect we serve communities, however at the end of the day we are all people and understanding and working with one another is important.”

First Nations University of Canada and University of Saskatchewan sociology professor Lee Sanders is not sure the damage can be repaired so easily.

“If there is no trust between the state and members of the nation there is no ‘relationship’. (As an example) no voluntary conformity to the rules; no internalization of law-abiding culture; no desire to be moral and productive; and no respect for the law,” Sanders explained.

“Rather, there is only a reaction to the force being imposed on a community, and conformity through force alone can never be sustained.”

Agreeing with both Sierzycki and Louttit, Sanders said she hopes there is a learning opportunity stemming from the unfortunate incident.

“If people are expected to be productive and moral in society and refrain from firing guns at people and property and/or posting derogatory comments on Facebook, then we need some means of motivating pro-social behaviours,” she said.

“People are products of their environment and the best way to correct deviance is through culturally-relevant education and meaningful employment including careers and cultural sensitivity training in law and law enforcement.”

She has seen the effort of RCMP and First Nations community in building a healthy sustainable relationship and said maintaining that is critically important.

“Law is a set of formal rules that when applied equally benefit society as a whole. The problem for me is that our laws have not always benefited First Nations peoples equally,” she said.

“This is changing of course but until First Nations peoples achieve political, economic, and cultural self-determination or equal access to these resources at a minimum, law – and law enforcement – will continue to be seen as a barrier to equality and/or an element of social control.”

Attempts were made to contact the officer.

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