'Great leader' J.J. Harper remembered 37 years after he was fatally shot by Winnipeg police

On March 9, 1988, John Joseph (J.J.) Harper, then executive director of the Island Lake Tribal Council, was walking home in Winnipeg when he was confronted by Const. Robert Cross.

Harper was unarmed, had committed no crime and Winnipeg police were in the area looking for someone else. But the officer and the 37-year-old Wasagamack First Nation man scuffled, and Cross fatally shot J.J.Harper.

Sunday marked the 37th anniversary of J.J. Harper's death. His wife, daughter and dozens others gathered for a memorial service at Winnipeg's Stanley Knowles Park to commemorate his life and legacy.

J.J. Harper was "unfortunately a victim of racial profiling and a victim of racism in the system.… [It] took his life," Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Grand Chief Garrison Settee told CBC News at the service on Sunday afternoon.

"His voice still resonates because of what he stood for.… He was an advocate for his people, a very powerful voice, and those are the things that we remember."

Wasagamack First Nation Chief Walter Harper was a youth when J.J. Harper was killed.

"I remember him as a great leader, a great man," Walter Harper said at the memorial service. 

The roles J.J. Harper held while working for First Nations in Manitoba, including his position at the Island Lake Tribal Council, have motivated and inspired Walter Harper until this day, he said.

While he is reminded of J.J. Harper every time he walks into his office and looks at a picture of him, he also wants the next generation from Wasagamack to know about the First Nations leader, so he brought a group of youth with him to the memorial. 

"They should know the history about what's going on … what's happening here," Walter Harper said. 

Twenty-four hours after fatally shooting J.J. Harper, Cross was cleared of any wrongdoing, leading to outcry from Indigenous leaders at the time.

J.J. Harper's death, and the 16 years it took to convict someone in the 1971 homicide of Norway House Cree Nation's Helen Betty Osborne, sparked the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry in the early 1990s.

The inquiry, led by the late Murray Sinclair, confirmed what the Indigenous community already believed transpired the night Harper was shot: Racism had played a role. Sinclair, Manitoba's first Indigenous judge, later led the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission and became a senator.

"We are left with an overwhelming sense of how needless the tragedies of this case have been," the inquiry report said. "What started as an unnecessary, racially motivated approach to an Aboriginal citizen on a city street has had profoundly disturbing results."

The probe led to 296 recommendations, with some specifically designed to better protect Indigenous women and girls decades before the abbreviation MMIWG (missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls) started to be used. 

"Only 32 [recommendations] have been implemented," Settee said. "We still have a long way to go."

Indigenous people are still racially profiled and systemic racism continues to be a problem, he said.

But he remains optimistic in the pursuit of reconciliation and the work toward ensuring First Nations people are treated fairly and equally within the justice system and in interactions with police. 

"We're willing to travel that journey," Settee said.