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starlight tour
Western Canada
DCHP-3 (Nov 2022)
n. — Systemic discrimination, Indigenous
an act of police brutality in which detained persons are driven to a remote area and left exposed to the elements.
Type: 1. Origin — The exact origin of the term starlight tour is unknown; however, it has been suggested that the practice has been occurring since the early 1900s in Western Canada (see the second 2001 quotation). Originally police jargon (see the 2023 quotation), the term found widespread in the early 2000s with a series of investigations in Saskatchewan into the suspicious deaths of several Indigenous men in police custody. These men, believed to have been subjected to so-called starlight tours at the hands of the police, were found dead from hypothermia in isolated areas outside of Saskatoon (Hubbard 2004). Collectively, these incidents became known as the Saskatoon freezing deaths (see entry below). Attestations of the term starlight tour are also present in Vancouver, in investigations into acts of police brutality against members of the city’s Downtown Eastside (see the 2003 quotation).
An incident in 1994 in Australia, in which three Aboriginal boys were left stranded by police (ABC News), suggest that the practice occurs in other countries; however, the term starlight tour is unique to Canada[frequency charts needed].
As Chart 1 shows, when properly filtered, the term is most frequency in Canada.
An incident in 1994 in Australia, in which three Aboriginal boys were left stranded by police (ABC News), suggest that the practice occurs in other countries; however, the term starlight tour is unique to Canada[frequency charts needed].
As Chart 1 shows, when properly filtered, the term is most frequency in Canada.
Quotations
2001
Hatchen and [Ken Munson] are each charged with assault and unlawful confinement. An aboriginal man, Darrell Night, alleges they arrested him without cause on the night of Jan. 28, 2000, assaulted him and took him on a so-called "starlight tour" -- leaving him to walk back from the outskirts of town in the cold.
Only two potential jurors were dismissed based on their answers to the questions. Bill Roe, Hatchen's lawyer, told reporters he challenged the one aboriginal woman selected to be questioned as a potential juror Monday because she had already declared a connection to Night.
2001
To have real impact, the commission must be allowed to sub poena witnesses, including inmates who testified during the royal commission on aboriginal peoples, as well as people making allegations to the FSIN's justice hot-line and everyone who stepped forward after it became public that police were dropping "undesirables" out of town in the dead of winter.
Newspaper coverage at the time proved that the so-called "starlight tour" has been standard police operating procedure in Western Canada for the last 100 years.
Despite this reservation, I am fully confident that a new page has been turned, and that the lives of aboriginal and poor white people will be immeasurably improved by the work of the commission.
2003
The following morning there was a news conference. While Graham was a bit awkward and spoke from hurriedly prepared notes, he was, nonetheless more open that either he or his predecessors have been in the past.
We will take him at his word that "the facts of this incident have stunned everyone in the organization, including me." The kind of rough justice allegedly dealt out by the cops to the three people they picked up on Granville Mall has been a part of police practice since policing began. The practice of removing suspects from one part of town and dumping them in a remote area with a memorable message is common enough to have a name in police circles: a "starlight tour."
Last fall, the Pivot Legal Society said it documented 50 cases of similar acts of police misconduct on the Downtown Eastside.
That aside, Graham's first few months on the job have not been stellar. His defence of the police department's missing women investigation was unconvincing, as was his defence of police actions at the Guns n' Roses concert.
2004
In Vancouver, six police officers are in the throes of a disciplinary hearing after pleading guilty to taking a trio of men to Stanley Park and assaulting them because they suspected they were dealing drugs.
It's the so-called starlight tour tactic, which involves driving drunkards and petty criminals to an isolated area, often on the outskirts of town, doling out a little rough justice and leaving them to fend for themselves.
The B.C. Police Complaints Commissioner called last week for a public inquiry into the case of Frank Paul, who froze to death in 1998 after police dumped him in an alley.
2005
Night "brought the terror of the 'starlight tour,' the stuff of folklore in the native community for decades, to the public's attention for the first time," says the book, which Reber co- authored with Robert Renaud, CBC Ottawa's regional director.
Indeed, it's documented that much earlier, in 1976, a Saskatoon police constable was fined a week's pay for driving three aboriginal people, including an eight-month pregnant woman, a distance from the city, forcing them to walk back, Reber said.
In 2003, a public inquiry was held into Stonechild's death.
2006
Many in Saskatoon's aboriginal community have long said Stonechild was taken on a ``starlight tour'' _ the name given to what some said was a practice by police officers of driving perceived troublemakers outside the city and leaving them to find their own way back.
Neither Hartwig nor Senger ever faced criminal charges.
References
- Hubbard (2004)
- ABC News
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