First Nations leaders demand national inquiry into 'epidemic' of deaths by police
CBC
Edith Wells got the call on Sept. 17, 2024 at 9:34.
It was a call she'll never forget, a call no parent ever wants to receive — the one informing her that her son, 42-year-old Jon Wells, was never coming home.
"It's only been two months since the passing of my son," Wells told a news conference held Wednesday by the Assembly of First Nations (AFN).
"And justice needs to be done."
Wells is one of two mothers who joined First Nations leaders in Ottawa this week to demand a national inquiry into systemic racism in policing to address what they're calling an "inter-related epidemic" of violence and death.
An emergency resolution calling for the inquiry was high on the agenda Tuesday as AFN chiefs and proxies met on day one of the national advocacy organization's annual winter meeting.
The resolution cited the recent deaths of 10 First Nations people following interactions with police from August to November 2024, a span of some six months.
Jon Wells, a member of the Blood Tribe in Alberta, died following an interaction with municipal police in Calgary.
"He was a loving person," his mother told the news conference.
"He was a kind, gentle, compassionate person. He had a lot of goals for himself. His life was taken too short."
The deaths are under investigation by oversight bodies in multiple jurisdictions, but the resolution says these reviews "are being conducted in isolation of each other, which is not drawing conclusions as one inter-related epidemic."
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