Ever since Dudley George, an unarmed Native protester, was killed on Sept. 6, 1995, by an Ontario Provincial Police officer, things have gotten really confusing.
The original protest was over the desecration of ancestral burial grounds at Ipperwash Provincial Park by 24 unarmed First Nations people, including men, women and children.
The OPP came in and Dudley George was shot by OPP officer Kenneth Deane. On the same day a Native youth was shot and wounded, and another man protesting was severely beaten by the heavily armed OPP.
Ontario Premier Mike Harris is alleged in a lawsuit launched by George’s family to have personally ordered the OPP to use its paramilitary unit to go in.
Harris’s lawyer is arguing the release of such documents would result in irreparable harm to the Premier’s reputation and character and to public interest. He is appealing a decision to disclose all documents.
Justice Gloria Epstein told Harris’s lawyer all the bad press is itself hurting the premier’s reputation. Even so the Ontario Superior Court judge allowed an extended delay in producing the list while the premier appealed the latest decision to produce a list of the documents.
This angered George’s brother who said he sees a special status being given to the premier. “They talked about rights. What about my brother’s rights? They took away his rights when they took his life,” George told reporters.
Meanwhile, the OPP have decided not to discipline two police officers accused of being dishonest and fabricating evidence at the trial into
the fatal shooting. At OPP officer Deane’s trial, Judge Hugh Fraser told one officer, “I find you are not an honest man.”
Fraser concluded that when Deane fired three shots he knew George was unarmed. Deane was convicted of criminal negligence and is appealing the decision. Judge Fraser also found Deanne’s fellow officer Chris Cossit’s tale of dodging a Molotov cocktail “purely fabricated and implausible.”
The fact that Dudley George was unarmed and police knew was born out by a government spy, who came out of the closet. Jim Moses, a Delaware Native from the Saint Catherine’s area, says he worked both for the OPP and CSIS, Canada’s ultra-secret spy agency. Both organizations have declined to comment on this. Moses said he worked for the OPP and CSIS because he didn’t want the Warriors Society extending their influence into Eastern Ontario.
Moses is publicly saying he discussed violence with the Ipperwash leaders posing as a journalist and that they said they were going the non-violence route. He says he passed this Information on to his superiors.
On June 16, Ontario Ombudsman Roberta Jamieson called for a public inquiry, saying there were questions about fundamental justice that have to be addressed.
And, lastly, George’s family felt it was good news when Justice James Southey of the divisional court ruled that Premier Harris, former attorney-general Charles Harnick and Solicitor-General Bob Runciman must remain in the wrongful death lawsuit filed by the George family. They had been fighting to be exempted.
