April Woodhouse, 50, was found lying outside on the steps of a house in Pinaymootang First Nation—about 240 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg—not far from where she lived.
In the hospital, she said they were told April had signs of internal bleeding. When Stagg went into the hospital room, she noticed something else.
“I was holding her hand, and I noticed her hands were badly beaten,” she said, adding there were marks on her sister’s body.
When Stagg called RCMP, she was told her sister’s death was not being considered a homicide.
When CTV News first reached out to Manitoba RCMP on Tuesday, a spokesperson said April’s death was a “medical incident.”
However, one day later, RCMP responded to CTV News again. This time the police said an investigation is underway.
It almost doesn’t matter what the final verdict turns out to be here, because the result of the investigation isn’t really the issue.
Because of the institutional history of racism, the RCMP’s decision on whether or not to investigate the death (or disappearance) of an Indigenous person isn’t considered trustworthy anymore. Their only option if they want to regain some credibility is to investigate even if they don’t think it’s necessary—investigate every case that’s even remotely questionable for the next several decades. They did this to themselves.
This also holds for many other police forces throughout the country. They ignored or dismissed (or even caused) these incidents for many years, and now the chickens are—slowly, but inevitably—coming home to roost.
I agree with you 100%. Institutionalized racism is still quite common.
My issue is the reporting. Any time a tragedy happens, families always say “my loved one would never do that” or “I don’t think this was an accident.”.
Grief has you looking for anything that makes sense, but the opinions of family aren’t fact, and there are details that should have been left out of the report, since it’s all speculation.
The important part is that an investigation has been launched, and the family can get more answers than they were given.