Trio of aboriginal men allege police dumped them on city outskirts

Story raises fear of "Midnight Rides"

By Ozzie Thomas

Three inner-city aboriginal men have alleged they were picked up off a Winnipeg street by uniformed members of the Winnipeg Police Service last April and driven miles to the northwest outskirts of the city at night where they were forced to remove their footware and walk home in frigid temperatures.

The trio maintains they were driven west on Inkster Boulevard, somewhere near or past the Perimeter Highway, to an unknown location north of the city and told to get out of the police cruiser.

Their allegations are eerily reminiscent of those made in the "Starlight Tour" case in Saskatoon where a Saskatchewan Aboriginal man, Darrell Night, accused two Saskatoon police officers of dumping him in 2000 at the outskirts of the city in sub-zero temperatures.

The two officers, Daniel Hatchen and Kenneth Munson were later convicted of unlawful confinement, fired and sentenced to jail.

In this case Garrett Barthelette 21, and two other men, Jamie 18, and his father, James 44, (both are maintaining anonymity at present) say, they were picked up near midnight while walking on William Avenue near Isabel Street on Good Friday April 15 while returning home from a party.

Barthelette, a single parent of two, says the incident occurred when a police cruiser pulled over to the curb on at Kate Street and an officer called out to one of the men by name.

When the trio complied with the officer's request to approach them, Barthelette says the two officers began searching him after which the trio were all handcuffed and placed in back seat of the cruiser car together

"They asked for our names but they already knew one of us," recounted Barthelette.

"They pulled up and said, 'James come here.' They asked us, 'what are you doing here?' and 'where are you coming from?"

"I said, just coming from a party and on our way back to Jame's house"

The eldest member of the trio confirms Barthelette's account.

"They picked us up at the Kit Kat store on Kate and William. I asked them, what are we being charged with? The cop said B&E to start with. I said, let the boys go They frisked me and I lost my IDs.

"They drove us out McPhillips to Inkster, straight out Inkster past the golf course past the perimeter-turn off the side of the road past a house on a gravel road. On the way out there I said, this is not the way to Hartford (a reference to the District 3 police station)

"Once out there, they said 'get out.' They took off the cuffs first, then said, 'kick off your shoes.' I placed them on top of the trunk of the cruiser followed by Jamie, "kick your shoes off put them on trunk of the car. 'Walk that way.'

"They sped off while our shoes fell off the trunk. Eventually we found our shoes," said James.

A baffling aspect of the story is that two of the men, Barthelette and Jamie acknowledge they have outstanding warrants for their arrest-Barthelette for failure to appear and Jamie for a breach of his bail conditions.

And in a further twist, the men say that as they were walking back into the city after being dumped they were picked up by another cruiser operated by uniformed Winnipeg Police Service officers, including one officer they believe was a supervisor, and questioned what they were doing so far out of the city.

Barthelette says that when they recounted the story to the two other officers-including the fact of their outstanding warrants-instead of being arrested they were driven home to their William Street address sometime around 7 a.m.

For his part, Barthelette says he's convinced the reason they were not arrested at that point was because the police were out to intimidate them into not going public with their complaints about the first two officers.

"Because we both have warrants out for our arrest they probably thought we wouldn't say anything to anyone about this, "he said.

The two original officers, according to the trio, were aware of the outstanding warrants against Barthelette and Jamie, having run their names through CPIC (Canadian Police Information Centre).

And the three men says that the recent and well publicized deaths of two aboriginal men Joseph Wegner and Rodney Naistus outside of Saskatoon in the last several years, who were found frozen to death in the same vicinity that Knight was dumped justifiably raised some fear for the Winnipeg men who say the actions by members of the Winnipeg Police service in this case point to a pattern of behaviour by police when dealing with members of the aboriginal community.

It's a concern typified by what James says was crossing his mind as he and his two companions were being driven to the outskirts of Winnipeg.

"I thought what did they do, transfer those f.... guys (Hatchen and Munson) over here?"

The trio says while they weren't initially concerned with pursuing any allegations of police misconduct, after consulting with family members they were urged to go public with their story

Barthelette has confirmed that he has contacted his lawyer.

When contacted about the allegations made by the three men Winnipeg Police Service spokesperson Bob Johnson only commented that in all his years on the force he didn't know of one officer that wasn't prepared to "take his medicine" when taken to task for misconduct.

The following is an uncensored excerpt from an interview conducted with Garrett Barthelette.

"While in the car James and I were trying to make light of the situation because Jamie (Jame's son) was sitting beside us looking pretty shook up in disbelief.

"When he realized he wasn't being taken into the the police station James said, "oh, were going for that ride"

"The police officers told him, 'Just shut up'

"We pulled along a dirt road and they turned off the car and they got out. The inside interior light of the car was on and they come around to the passenger side and open the door and tell James to get out.

"They said to James, 'Get out of the car.'

"James says, 'You guys drag me out'

"The police officers proceed to drag James from the cruiser.

"After the door closes me and Jamie are talking wondering what's going on? We asked each other, do you think he's getting the beats right now?

"Looking out the back window we could see that he wasn't getting a beating. We were both frightened and worrried about our own safety at this point.

"Here's (police) guys supposed to be protecting us, driving us out in the dark".
"This is all over a period of ten minutes then the car door opens once again passenger side Cop then tells Jamie to get out. Jamie does as he's told.
"At this point I'm actually a bit relieved because I can see or hear no signs of violence. About another 5 minutes passes where again the door opens and I'm asked to get out.

The police tell me to 'Get up against the car Take your shoes off.'

"I said, Aw come on man.

"Fucking do it", they said to me. So I took them off.

"Start walking.", they told me.

"I can see shadows on the road. Im walking and I'm instantly cold . There's frost on the grass and it's pretty cold. As I get closer, I see its Jamie and James standing there waiting for me. I finally catch up to them.

"We were feeling relief that we didnt get beaten or taken to jail because of our warrants.

"At the time I can say that I was pretty fucked up, we still had no shoes on.

"When we hooked up I said can you believe those fucking pigs, these fucking white boys taking a couple breeds out for a ride, instead of jail, lazy motherfuckers would rather spend the rest of their shift, taking us for the ride to the outskirts rather than have to take us to jail and do some fucking paper work.

"Along with being cold I wasn't sure if we would find our way back. I didnt know if Jamie or James knew where we were headed to.

"We joked around to ease the tension. We were talking about a warm house, smoke and a pillow. We walked for hours towards Inkster Blvd. We could see the lights of the city once we got near Inkster. Another cruiser pulls up on Inkster and two cops are in it, now I'm thinking, "oh, fuck." They roll down the window and ask us what we are doing out here?"

"I said, "You guys just dropped us off a couple of hours ago. The cop who was driving said, 'Oh really, did you get any badge numbers.'

"He told us to hop in and they asked us our names and we gave them up again.
There was a bit of a kerfluffle over James and Jamie's name because they have the same name.

"The cops thought they were fucking with them acting suspicious they asked us 'why we were dropped off' I said, "How the fuck do I know.

"They asked us what we were picked up for.

"I said, I guess it's because we were three native guys walking down the street at two in the morning, to some cops I guess that could be suspicious.

"He said, "Well I guess, what would you guys be doing, walking around at that time of the night.

"I said," Coming back from a friends, going to back to James house to crash"

"The other cop asked us where exactly are we headed and we told them. They offered to drive us there.

"James said he noticed the second set of cops, one of the cop had bars.

"At about seven in the morning they dropped us off at Jame's house on William.