Shoot first, ask questions later?

North Battleford, Saskatchewan, lawyer Eleanore Sunchild was eloquent in describing the context of the shooting August 9 of a 22-year-old Cree man, Colten Boushie. “There’s been more than 100 years of stereotypes and racism building, and the Battleford here has a particular history,” Sunchild said. “Our peoples are not equal. They have never been equal.”

A member of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation, Colten drove his car into a farmer’s driveway because of a flat tire. We know a car window was then smashed and Boushie was shot by Gerald Stanley, the farmer who owned the property, while Boushie’s passengers fled for their lives. Stanley has been charged with second-degree murder.

Boushie’s cousin, Eric Meechance, said they ran after trying to drive away and colliding with another vehicle. “Running is probably what saved all of our lives, you know, because if he’s going to shoot one, he’s probably would have shot us all,” he said. “He wasn’t shooting to scare us, he was shooting to kill.”

The local RCMP detachment then helped frame the story by stating in a press release that the other passengers in the car were taken into custody as part of a theft investigation. The passengers were not charged and were subsequently released.

Chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations said the RCMP statement “provided just enough prejudicial information” for people to draw the conclusion that the shooting was somehow justified.

Chief Clint Wuttunee of the Red Pheasant First Nation said the media’s initial portrayal of the event, based on the RCMP release, made the incident sound like a crime was about to be committed by the passengers in the car.

A GoFundMe page was set up to raise $10,000 to help Boushie’s family cover funeral expenses. Another fund set up to help farmer Gerald Stanley, however, has received substantial support from his community. Ben Kautz, a municipal councillor in nearby Browning, wrote in an online posting that Stanley’s “only mistake was leaving three witnesses.”

Stanley has since been released on bail. One wonders if a First Nation person would have received the same treatment if they had murdered a non-Native driver looking for help.

In Canada, the key provision in the Criminal Code is that no one may use “more force than is necessary” and then, only when “he believes on reasonable grounds that he can not otherwise preserve himself from death or grievous bodily harm.”

In section 35, the Code goes on to require that one must show that, “he declined further conflict and quitted or retreated from it (the assault) as far as it was feasible to do so before the necessity of preserving himself … arose.” Moreover, the right to use physical force to defend non-family members is more limited than it is in many states, as are a Canadian’s rights to repulse trespassers on one’s property, or to use force to stop the commission of serious or violent crimes (sections 24, 40, and 41).

It is no question that this was a crime. What I find disturbing are the responses throughout Canada. I have been told this is Conservative trolling. Online commenters tried to blame the Indian Act, the Liberal Party, the reservation system, Aboriginals not paying tax and telling us, “Get a job, pay taxes and leave the past in the past.”

What does that have to do with getting shot because of a vehicle problem in a rural area? It just shows that the problem is bigger than the truth here in Canada.