Apr. 06, 2005 - Issue #494: Queens of the Stone Age
Justice of the police
Three Native men froze to death at the hands of the Saskatoon police; Two
Worlds Colliding explores why
On January 28, 2000, Darrel Night left a party that was getting out of hand.
As soon as he stepped out of the building, two Saskatoon police officers
grabbed him, cuffed him and drove out of town, dumping the terrified man on
the side of the road in minus-20∞ weather. He called out for them to
stop, afraid for his life. “That’s your fucking problem,”
was the only reply from the patrol car as it drove away.
Night trudged across a snowy field towards a distant power plant. Catching
the attention of a security guard was the key to his survival. Rodney Naistus
wasn’t as lucky: he was found frozen to death the next morning near
where Night was dropped. Nor was Lawrence Wegner, who was found frozen to
death in the same area a few weeks later. All three men were Native.
The Saskatoon freezing deaths gained notoriety worldwide—but beneath
the simmering cocktail of racism and allegations of police abuse lies a
community profoundly divided along cultural lines. Cree filmmaker Tasha
Hubbard tells the story of how these deaths impacted both the aboriginal
population and police officers of Saskatoon in her solo directorial debut,
Two Worlds Colliding. Accompanied by the retired
Native RCMP officer hired to shadow the police investigation into the
freezing deaths, the 31-year-old filmmaker is currently touring Canada with
her documentary. The tour stops in Edmonton’s Stanley Milner Library
tonight (April 7) at 7 p.m.
“At first, I just looked at the impact these deaths had on my
community,” says Hubbard, a Masters student at the University of
Saskatchewan. “The story was all over the news, but I wanted to see how
people were reacting to and dealing with the events.” Over the course
of shooting the more than 100 hours of film, however, the project evolved. A
deeply personal interview with Darrel Night explored the depth of his terror
and his frustrated knowledge that nobody would believe his story. In addition
to raw grief over the loss of their son, Hubbard found in Lawrence
Wegner’s parents a nearly abandoned hope to find the truth and bring
some closure. In the film’s most intense segment, the drumming and
keening cries of a round dance are superimposed on a march to the police
station and candlelight vigil for Wegner. In the end, Hubbard decided to
provide a voice to the aboriginal people disempowered within their own
story.
“I was on my way to another job when I heard about the press conference
with [Saskatoon] police chief Dave Scott,” Hubbard recalls. In February
2000, the chief announced that the Saskatoon police would conduct an internal
investigation of the Darrel Night incident. Hubbard remembers turning to her
mentor and saying that someone should do something on this story. “Why
don’t you?” was his reply, triggering a four-year project that
began with begged favours from fellow filmmakers and ended with a grant from
the National Film Board’s Aboriginal Filmmaking Program. Born to Cree
parents, Hubbard was adopted as an infant into a white family with a
tradition of policing. Does the story of Saskatoon’s inner conflict
reflect a schism within herself?
“I was always concerned that my own story would come out in the
film,” Hubbard admits. “I felt such a commitment to the families
and everyone affected by the events that I didn’t want my own
circumstances to overshadow their story.” To ensure that the focus
remained on the tragedy, she consciously wrote herself out of the project and
remained only as the narrator and observer.
This focus never wavers, but does expand in scope. From the raw emotions of
Night and the Wegner family, Two Worlds Colliding moves on to explore the
story behind the Blue Wall of police secrecy. The first officer to hear and
believe Night’s story was shocked to his core, shaken by how these
events tarnished the badge he wears with pride. On the brink of tears, the
department’s aboriginal liaison, Constable Craig Nyirfa, couldn’t
help but wonder if these deaths could undermine the nine years of progress he
had made in bringing Native youth together with Saskatoon police officers.
Even the newly appointed community liaison officer (who would later be
implicated in the freezing death of another Native man 10 years earlier)
expressed his concern on how this would affect the department. Having claimed
the lives of three men and the careers of five others, including police chief
Dave Scott, the implications sent the force reeling.
The official police line is that the incident with Darrel Night was an
isolated case. The two officers responsible were fired, convicted of unlawful
confinement and served four-month sentences. The cases of Naistus and Wegner
remain unsolved. However, in a move that sent further shockwaves around the
world, Saskatoon’s new police chief, Russ Sabo, announced evidence of
similar drop-offs dating as far back as the 1970s. Sabo was hired on the
strength of his community-building experience, and it was amidst ominous talk
of a vote of non-confidence in the police union that he apologized and took
responsibility for a never-admitted-to history and began trying to heal the
rift between the two cultures.
The 49-minute film is truly about two cultures—these two
worlds—colliding. The film explores the fearful and grief-stricken
aboriginal culture that demands answers, while spending time with the mostly
well-intentioned Saskatoon police officers performing a difficult and largely
thankless job. Where these two groups butt heads, the film exposes an ugly
core of racism that threatens to overtake any positive steps. Which, Hubbard
says, is why this tour is so important.
“I’m hoping people will come,” she explains. “Not
only will they see the film, but they’ll have a chance to talk about
it. The issues of the film are not exclusive to Saskatoon; it’s about
prejudice based on a lack of knowledge, combined with apathy. And my goal is
to combat that apathy.”
With Two Worlds Colliding, Hubbard feels she has accomplished some of her
goals: she has given Darrel Night and the Wegner family the chance to speak,
and she hopes to have helped make some changes. But, she declares, it’s
not over yet. “There are other stories there. The fact is, racism is
not just a random act, and treating it that way is dangerous.”
Lawrence Wegner’s mother knows that danger. “I never forget my
son when it’s cold out,” she murmurs through her tears.
Hopefully, none of us will. V
Two Worlds Colliding
Directed by Tasha Hubbard • Stanley Milner Library • Thu, Apr 7
(7pm)
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