ICT Series: Native women and girls exploited throughout Canada

First Nations

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

"The “Missing Women Investigation Review” released by the Vancouver Police Department Aug. 20 documented widespread deficiencies in investigations of missing and murdered women – no surprise to families who’d been filing reports for more than two decades. “It’s taken them 19 years to understand what we’ve been saying all along,” said Angela MacDougall, executive director of Battered Women’s Support Services. “We knew what was going on in the ’90s – women were being plucked off the streets. We said there were serial killers, and that women were going missing, and the police did nothing.

“For them to now say ‘sorry, we messed up’ is not good enough. Thirteen more women died because of their bungling, infighting, racism, sexism and jurisdictional issues.”

MacDougall is referring to the failure of police to recognize compelling evidence collected against serial killer Robert Pickton nearly two years before he was eventually charged in the deaths of 20 women, including six Native women. While incarcerated, he bragged he had killed 49 women and “wanted to make it an even 50.”

The 408-page analysis written over several years by Vancouver Deputy Chief Constable Doug LePard concedes police should have recognized there was a serial killer at work since the 1990s, and that a multi-jurisdictional task force including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police should have been created earlier to expand the investigation.

“The RCMP could have gotten involved much earlier and didn’t. … I had $100 million and 180 staff, so imagine (the Vancouver Police Department’s) frustration with eight people,” said RCMP Inspector Don Adam in the report."

Get the Story:
National call for inquiry into deaths of hundreds of Native women (Indian Country Today 8/30)