Five Canadian police officers have been charged, including two with manslaughter, following the death of an Indigenous man shortly after his 2017 arrest in the west of the country.
The other three officers were charged with attempted obstruction of justice by the British Columbia prosecutor's office.
Father of three and member of the Wet'suwet'en and Gitxsan First Nations, Dale Culver died shortly after his arrest in the city of Prince George, 700 kilometers north of Vancouver, in July 2017. According to the Office of Independent Investigations of province, police were initially responding to a call about a suspicious man
"prowling around vehicles"
in downtown Prince George.
When the agents wanted to apprehend Dale Culver, the latter would have resisted and would have tried to flee on a bicycle, adds a report from the office of investigation.
During the arrest, the police would have used tear gas on the 35-year-old man who, shortly after,
"seemed to have difficulty breathing"
, underlines the document.
He was then rushed to hospital where he lost his life about an hour and a half later.
“The police are supposed to protect us”
"We will not be able to recover from this tragedy until justice is served
," said his aunt Virginia Pierre, who raised him, in a statement.
“Too many people have died at the hands of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The police are supposed to protect us
,” she said.
"We have remained in the dark for a large part of this process"
which has lasted for almost six years, added the eldest daughter of the deceased, Lily Speed-Namox.
“We want the public to know how difficult it has been for us since my father was killed.”
In 2018, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association notably filed a complaint with police, alleging that federal agents asked witnesses to delete videos of the arrest.
For many years, relations between Indigenous people and the police in Canada have been particularly tense, and the death of Dale Culver has fueled accusations of anti-Indigenous racism within law enforcement.
The defendants are due in court on March 14.