An internal RCMP investigation has cleared officers who were accused of mistreating the family of an Indigenous man after he was shot to death on a Saskatchewan farm.
Colten Boushie’s family filed a complaint about the way they were treated when being notified of his death in August 2016.
Boushie’s mother, Debbie Baptiste, has said police surrounded her home, had “an improper attitude,” started searching without permission and asked her if she’d been drinking.
A letter sent by the RCMP to the family says the complaint was unfounded and adds that officers believed someone who ran from the shooting scene could have been in the house and armed.
Chris Murphy, a lawyer for the Boushie family, says the RCMP explanations in the letter don’t make sense.
Murphy says either police were there to notify Baptiste of her son’s death or to search the house — and if it was for both reasons, they should have checked the home first.
“That’s what you do first to protect, not only the police officers, but the people you’re going to notify, because if there is a shootout, people can get caught in the middle of it,” Murphy said in a phone interview Thursday.
“You don’t notify the family first, and then ask for consent, and then go and search the residence, if you actually believe there’s somebody inside with a firearm.”
Murphy said the person who ran from the scene was someone who ran for his life “amidst gunshots.”
Boushie, 22, was shot and killed Aug. 9, 2016, while riding in an SUV that went onto a farm near Biggar, Sask.
The farmer, Gerald Stanley, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and is to stand trial next year.