What Have We learned?
It took more than three years of complaints and cries for action from citizens and family members and then the media for the police in and around Vancouver to finally acknowledge that someone was murdering and "disappearing" native women prostitutes.
Ultimately, the result was the arrest and conviction of Robert Pickton.
How many women died while the police twiddled?
In Northern BC, we still have the Highway of Tears.
Now Manitoba is experiencing the identical phenomenon.
Native prostitutes are disappearing or being found murdered in creek beds.
At least count, there are 75 aboriginal women missing in Manitoba.
That's the same number of police officers assigned to the case of Peter Ladner's murdered sister.
There are 522 aboriginal women missing nation-wide.
Yesterday, the Manitoba provincial government announced the creation of a "task force." It will be in place in a month.
Do we have at least two systems of justice and at least two auto-responses from police forces in this country?
That is, one for white folk and one for natives?
Yes, we do.
In the Manitoba cases, the link seems to be about crack cocaine and the Vietnamese drug dealers in Winnipeg, although nothing has yet to be proved or even on the docket.
While we read our papers, real women are being killed.
In Canada.
1 comment:
Roughly a year before Robert Picton was arrested, I worked in a Downtown East rooming house doing renovations for the owner of the building. I got to know that tenants and employee's over the time I was working there. Almost everyone that I had a conversation with basically knew that a male that owned a farm was coming downtown, picking up woman and taking them out to the burbs. They also knew that they were never to be seen again. Funny how these people knew this, BUT the VPD had NO IDEA. Hmmm.
Even though I can't stand drugs or drug use and I believe that for the most part people make bad decisions on their own, the fact remains that what happened to these woman in Vancouver should not only be fully investigated, BUT there should be people on trial for negligence.
Lastly on that point. Isn't it interesting how you never hear from the families that went to the media and said they had told the VPD what they had heard about some man picking up woman and taking them out to the burbs well before Picton was arrested. Why are those families silent now ? Did some organization get to them ? Hmmm.
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