Racism in policing is systemic.
It is embedded in the laws and policies that govern policing. It results in a service that inadequately protects — and often harms — Indigenous, black, and other racialized people.
Although racism is systemic, the police complaint process in Manitoba is individualized: after a police-involved death, the province investigates the officer, not the system. Furthermore, the inquests tasked with investigating police-involved and other state-involved deaths are not achieving their purpose of preventing similar deaths.
We are a coalition of families affected by police violence in Manitoba, and we want change. We have two demands: first, a new police complaint body empowered to investigate systemic complaints; and second, the reform of the existing inquest system to ensure that it produces recommendations to improve public safety — as it is meant to do.
We believe meaningful reform is possible — but only if the law changes.