Advocates, family of man killed by RCMP launch 'people's tribunal' to probe police
Mother of Jared Lowndes says that 'tribunal' will offer chance for families to talk about police violence
Laura Holland's voice shook with emotion as she talked about her smart and affectionate son, saying she is "tired of waiting" for justice for him.
Jared Lowndes, or Jay as his family called him, was shot twice in the back by police as he sat in his vehicle at a Tim Hortons drive-thru in Campbell River, B.C., in July 2021.
Holland said at a news conference on Friday that her family was torn apart following her son's death at age 38, and she has been doing everything she can to seek justice for him and other Indigenous people who have been killed by police in the province.
"The only spark of life that we have is that our loved ones are pushing us because if we don't speak out … they will keep killing us," she said.
Holland joined with legal advocates and other groups on Friday to announce a "people's tribunal" to investigate crimes committed by police against racialized communities.
"Systemic racism fuels an epidemic of police violence" against these communities, said a news release from the groups, which includes the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, Pivot Legal Society, Care not Cops and Justice for Jared.
The B.C. Prosecution Service last year declined to lay charges against the three officers involved in the shooting.
The service said Lowndes, from the Wet'suwet'en Nation in northern B.C., had reversed his vehicle into a police vehicle, tried to bear spray officers and had stabbed a police dog to death.
The B.C. RCMP did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the "people's tribunal."
Holland said her son was reading Schindler's List by the time he was 12, that he always did his best to take care of people, hugged everyone he knew and helped his elders.
"It just seems impossible, and the only way for our family and (other) families to have any justice, to find any semblance of justice, is to have a people's tribunal."
Holland said the tribunal will offer a chance for members and families who lost their loved ones due to police violence to talk about racism and other unlawful practices within Canada's police forces.
The tribunal will gather and share information about crimes by police, the groups said.
Tracking of police-involved deaths in Canada shows Black people died at six times the rate of their white counterparts, while Indigenous people die at eight times the rate of those who are white, according to the advocates.
The tribunal's first event will be held Saturday in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside before travelling across B.C.
Families to 'take back narrative'
Latoya Farrell, policy staff counsel with the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, said Indigenous communities have been over-policed and under-protected, and the forum could shine a light on systemic failures of law enforcement and the legal system.
"We've seen time and time again that the narrative in the public is often detrimental to the credibility of both the community and the person who was killed," she said. "We see that the state and police control that narrative in a way to denigrate from a person's characteristic in order to justify why they deserve to be killed."
She said having the tribunal will allow families to "take back that narrative," to tell their side of the story and to "rectify the harm" that the authority has done to their loved ones, not just in killing them but harming their memory and legacy.
Holland said now is also a "critical time" for members of the Indigenous community to rally together given there has been so much news lately, with politicians denying remains found at former residential school sites and Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim's leaked memo that suggested relocating Indigenous people from the Downtown Eastside.
Meenakshi Mannoe, representing the advocacy group Defund 604, said the tribunal could help provide oversight of police.
"It's a community-based forum that's going to uplift the voices of directly impacted family members, rather than investing power in colonial tools of government and lawyers and academics. It's putting that power back into the hands of community," said Mannoe.
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