First Nation demands OPP officer fired after allegedly leaving man on remote northern Ontario highway

First Nations leaders are calling for the Ontario Provincial Police to fire one of its sergeants after she allegedly left a man on the side of a remote highway and told him not to return to a northern Ontario township in the summer of 2019.

The incident was essentially a "starlight tour," said Wilfred King, chief of Gull Bay First Nation (also known as Kiashke Zaaging Anishinabek). That's a practice where police officers would drive people, often Indigenous people suspected of public intoxication, out of a town, then leave them on the side of the road to fend for themselves.

"This individual's charter rights were violated. His human rights were violated and his legal rights were violated," King told CBC News.

"She should be dismissed from the police service, because it's criminal behaviour. That type of behavior should not go unchallenged."

In a statement to CBC News, OPP spokesperson Bill Dickson said the matter was investigated, and the officer in question was removed from the Gull Bay area. Dickson said he couldn't provide details "on any potential informal disciplinary measures which may have been taken," because it is a confidential, personnel matter.

CBC News has not been able to independently verify what happened and has asked Dickson if the sergeant would be able to give an interview, but the OPP has not responded to that request. 

But King, and other experts that have researched starlight tours and police abandonment, say any officer that takes someone into police custody without due process and then abandoning them exhibits criminal behaviour.

The man who was left on the side of the road, Jeremiah Skunk of Mishkeegogamang First Nation, said OPP Sgt. Tammy Bradley should be fired.

In an interview with CBC News, Skunk said he was visiting his then-girlfriend in Armstong, Ont., located 250 kilometres north of Thunder Bay and 70 kilometres north of Gull Bay, in July or August 2019. He was outside her home after they had a dispute, when Bradley arrived, put him in handcuffs and into the back of the cruiser.

She was going to bring him to the detachment in nearby Whitesand First Nation, but he asked her to drive him to Thunder Bay, located 190 kilometres south of Gull Bay, because he didn't know anyone else in the area.

Instead, Skunk said she drove him about 10 minutes down the road, took off his handcuffs, and let him out with half a bottle of water and a sandwich.

"She told me not to come back to Armstrong, or I will be charged with trespassing," Skunk recalled. 

So he walked for 10 to 14 hours to Gull Bay, the next closest community on the remote highway, on a hot summer day, Skunk said. Along the way, he had to drink water out of puddles on the side of the road to stay hydrated, and had an encounter with a mother bear and two cubs.

"I could have died. I could have [been] killed by a bear," he said.