OPP Re-Investigates the Deaths of 13 Indigenous Peoples in Thunder Bay, Ont., Over a 13-Year Period

The Ontario Provincial Police are re-investigating the deaths of 13 Indigenous peoples in Thunder Bay between 2006 and 2019.

OPP spokesman Bill Dickson confirmed Tuesday that the independent re-examinations are underway and have been conducted at the request of the county attorney general. The cases were previously investigated by the Thunder Bay Police Service (TBPS) and a report last year determined that they should be re-investigated.

These new investigations are assigned to OPP officers and are led by a key case manager in the organization’s criminal investigation department.

“It is our intent to take a victim-centered, traumatic and culturally informed approach to thoroughly investigate the circumstances that led to these 13 tragic deaths in Thunder Bay,” Dickson said in a statement.

The re-investigations could lead to new criminal charges, he said.

“We believe the victims’ families, friends, communities and the public deserve to know what happened.”

Dickson declined to provide further details on which specific cases are being re-examined.

Thunder Bay Police Chief Darcy Fleury previously told CBC News that he was open to any new investigation and would cooperate with them.

“If there are deficiencies that have been reported, I’m certainly open to having them re-examined,” he said in an interview on March 22, shortly after his hiring was announced.

A spokesman for the TBPS said on Tuesday that the service could not comment.

Coroner’s assessment of 2 deaths also in confidential report

Tuesday’s news comes just over a year after a research team looked into how the TBPS investigated cases of sudden death recommended to re-examine 14 deaths. The recommendations are contained in a confidential report leaked to media organizations, including CBC News.

The report also included a case recommended for a coroner’s review of a missing person death and another for a drug-related death.

It also found that 25 unsolved cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG) from Thunder Bay should be reviewed.

The report was part of the latest work of the Broken Trust Commission, which was set up after the county’s oversight body, the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, found evidence of systemic racism in the city’s police force in 2018.

The commission called for a re-examination of the sudden deaths of nine indigenous peoples. Part of the process was to consider whether other sudden death investigations by the Thunder Bay Police Department should be conducted again.

Since that report, the police and supervisory board have undergone significant changes: Fleury was hired as the new police chief, and the supervisory board has been overseen by a provincially appointed administrator for the past year.