The family of a teenage girl shot and killed by Winnipeg police is calling for a public inquiry into police-related deaths of Indigenous people after Manitoba’s police watchdog determined the officer who fired the fatal shots should not be criminally charged.
Eishia Hudson, a 16-year-old Indigenous girl, was killed by an unnamed Winnipeg police officer last April after a chase in a stolen Jeep following an alleged robbery at a liquor store.
At the time, Winnipeg police said Hudson was driving the SUV which ran into a police cruiser and a number of other cars near Lagimodiere Boulevard and Fermor Avenue.
The Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba (IIU) said Thursday it has finished a months-long investigation into the police shooting and, after consulting with the Manitoba Prosecution Service, no criminal charges are being recommended against the officer.
“This incident is a tragedy, magnified by the loss of a young life,” said IIU’s civilian director, Zane Tessler at Thursday press conference.
The IIU said the investigation, which started the day after Hudson’s death, included interviews with several officers who were at the scene, as well as four other suspects who were in the SUV at the time, and others who witnessed the shooting.
They say the investigators also used a recording of the 911 call, audio from WPS radio transmissions, as well as photographs and video taken by various civilian witnesses in their probe.
Tessler said video taken by a driver stopped at a nearby traffic light showed officers were in danger of being hit by the vehicle.
“It captured the reversing movement of that Jeep and the attempted forward movement of that Jeep with officers trying to bail out, to avoid being struck by it,” he said.
According to the IIU’s 15-page final report into the shooting, the officer who fired the shots declined to be interviewed but did provide his notes and a prepared statement to IIU investigators.
Police had responded to a liquor store robbery on April 8 and said a group of teens threatened staff and walked out with liquor.
Officers spotted the stolen Jeep and pursued it as it struck the police cruiser, crossed over a median and crashed into the truck, police said at the time. They also said shots were fired as officers tried to apprehend people in the Jeep.
The report said officers, along with some civilian witnesses, said the Jeep continued to move as officers surrounded it and ordered those inside to stop and get out.
The report quotes a use-of-force expert as saying officers were correctly concerned that the situation posed a lethal threat as the vehicle continued to move.
“I am of the opinion that since this was a high-risk arrest with offenders who had just committed a commercial robbery and had threatened to stab the victims, the officers were correct to be concerned that a lethal-force threat could suddenly arise,” the expert, who is not named, says in the report.
‘Systemic racism is alive’
Hudson’s father, William Hudson, called the report a whitewash and said police could have used non-lethal force.
He is calling for a broad public inquiry into police-related deaths of Indigenous people.
“With the decision given by the investigation unit, I feel complete anger, I feel the report was unclear and one sided,” he said at a press conference organized by the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs. “Systemic racism is alive — it’s all over.
“It’s bad that the Winnipeg police are protected for what they do.”
Nahanni Fontaine, justice critic for Manitoba’s Opposition New Democrats, supported the call for a broad public inquiry.
“For generations now, there is an onslaught of violence that is perpetrated against the bodies of Indigenous women and girls and two-spirited,” she said.
While there are no plans for a public inquiry, the shooting will be the subject of two more-narrow reviews.
An inquest, led by a provincial judge, is expected in the near future and is to look at the details of what happened. Manitoba’s advocate for children and youth has said her office will also investigate.
In a statement Winnipeg Police Chief Danny Smyth called Hudson’s death tragic and said police will “fully cooperate and participate” in an inquest called by the medical examiner.
“The Inquest will have a broader look at the circumstances that lead to Eishia’s death and may make recommendations to prevent situations like this in the future,” Smyth said.
Winnipeg police shot four other people in 2020. Three, including Eishia, were Indigenous and shot within 10 days of each other.
Four other people in the SUV were arrested at the scene after Hudson was shot. Their cases remain before the courts.
While the IIU does not normally release their final reports into investigations while criminal charges are still before the courts, they say an exception was made in this case because it is in the public’s interest.
–With files from Steve Lambert at The Canadian Press