On Friday, June 14th, ASIRT released its 54-page report on the murder of Latjor Kuony Tuel on February 19th 2022 (yes, during Black History Month). The findings: no cop guilty, actions justified. While "justified" is always expected, it never gets easier to be reminded of the way Black lives are disposable. These reports never leave us with anything besides confirmation that police get away with murder and the impact continues to cause waves through communities who never have an opportunity to heal. I don't think there are words to describe what I am feeling after learning the news that police officers were, once again, found not responsible for their actions. It's taken me 3 days to collect my thoughts and write this blog. But the pain I feel is nothing in comparison to what is being felt by Latjor's family. I write this after consultation, and with immense anger and grief. Latjor deserved better. Latjor still deserves better.
Who was Latjor Kuony Tuel
Latjor was born in 1980 in Malakal, South Sudan. After his father died, Latjor assumed that role in the family. But the family’s life was disrupted when Latjor, at around age 11, became one of the Lost Boys of Sudan. [1] The Lost Boys of Sudan were a group of 20,000+ children who were separated from their families after war broke out in 1983 and lasted until 2005, killing 100s of thousands and displacing millions more. In sharing this, it's important to recognize that both Sudan and South Sudan continue to face war and genocide, atrocities that go greatly ignored by most people. It’s estimated that over half the Lost Boys died during their travels following forced displacement. The boys were left to bury their own friends. Those who survived went on to live in refugee camps in Kenya, while others were trained to become child soldiers. [2] As of 2021, there are still anywhere between 7,000 and 19,000 child soldiers in South Sudan and a child is dying from famine every two hours in Sudan from the worst hunger crisis in the world in decades.
Latjor migrated to Canada as a refugee on November 7th 2000. Many of his family and friends were already here, either fleeing violence in South Sudan or coming to join their kin in a place that had offered "peace" and "opportunities." If people have learned anything since 2020, it's the realization that Canada is not the "safe haven" they've believed it to be. Quite frankly, the biggest grift was Canada convincing the world that it's a safe, inclusive and welcoming country where everyone is "nice" and "polite." Newcomers are often met with violence through detention centers, false promises of support from nonprofits like the Centre for Newcomers, barriers to accessing basic resources and employment, and battle every day racism from Canadians. Latjor's experience was no different in the sense that he came here seeking a better life only to be met with violence in other forms. On top of living with the PTSD from the oppression and violence experienced in childhood, Latjor had to navigate the deeply systemic and overt racism and anti-Blackness through his daily life here in Canada. There was never an opportunity for Latjor to heal or experience justice in his lifetime. Latjor came to Canada for a better life only to end up murdered by the state.
Latjor was a beautiful man, a valued community member who was full of adventure. He spent time attending community gatherings, volunteering to support others, as well as planting trees and picking berries in lush B.C. forests. He had an infectious laugh and a smile that could warm your entire being. Latjor's spirit lives on through those left with the pain of his loss, and his family continues to fight for his justice.
What is ASIRT?
ASIRT stands for 'Alberta Serious Incident Response Team' and "investigates events where serious injury or death may have been caused by police and serious or sensitive allegations of police misconduct." ASIRT's executive director decides – after consulting the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service – whether a police officer should be criminally charged. But who polices the police? ASIRT is made up of.. police officers. Members of the RCMP, Edmonton Police Service, Calgary Police Service and the Canadian Forces Military Police to be exact. In fact, Calgary Police chief Mark Neufeld himself helped to create ASIRT in 2007. "Civilian investigators" are Peace Officers. The police are policing themselves.
Getting Away with Murder
Based on the Tracking Injustice data base, there have been 751 police-involved deaths where force was used since 2000 in Canada and 1,946 deaths in custody. These numbers are separate, because "police-involved deaths" only includes those where police use force (weapons like guns or tasers) or physical interventions (hands-on, restraints). People who die in custody are often said to not have sustained their injuries by police themselves, which is something to be upset about on its own because if a person had not have been detained in the first place, they'd most likely still be alive. Based on the CBC Deadly Force database, 70% of the people killed by police struggled with mental health issues or substance use or both. There has been a 66.5% increase in deaths associated with a police use of force when comparing 2011-2022 in Canada.
The Alberta Police Misconduct Database "dates back almost 30 years and includes 404 individual incidents involving 517 officers." Based on ASIRT's website, they have been assigned 630 files since 2015. Of those 630, only 40 have seen charges laid. That's less than 7% of cases. This is what happens when you have police in charge of holding their own friends and colleges accountable; this is the thin blue line or "blue wall of silence" in action.
February 19th, 2022
On February 19th, 2022, Latjor was experiencing a mental health crisis after being kicked out from the place he stayed. The report states that a witness, who was a friend of Latjor, says Latjor "was kicked out by his friend. The whole day and night he’s been walking around. He does not have any place to live." Latjor had been struggling with PTSD long before February 19th, 2022 and I think it's important to recognize that living in an anti-Black, capitalist hellscape should be enough to affect someones mental health. When we talk about a "mental health crisis," it's often isolated to the present moment, still seeing someone's mental and physical response to the world around them as an individual one rather than a series of events brought on through societal failures. Latjor may have been tipped over the edge after being kicked out from his home, but we cannot ignore his childhood experiences that included being separated from his family, forced to be a child soldier and growing up in violence only to come to so-called Canada and continue struggling to have his basic needs to met.
For your understanding: the Subject Officer, or SO, is an officer whose presence, action or decision is reasonably believed to be connected to the death or serious harm that occurred during a police-involved incident. A Witness Officer, or WO, is an officer involved in or present during the incident who is not a Subject Officer.
Based on the ASIRT report, 3 separate 911 calls were made between 3:39PM and 3:40PM to report that a man (Latjor) had "attacked another person with a stick" and "pulled out a knife and waved it at people." WO1 arrived to the scene at 3:46PM and by 3:58PM, there were 8 police vehicles on-scene. As more and more police show up, immediately grabbing weapons and planning their attack, Latjor says, "You did not even ask my name." Latjor wanted to be heard, wanted to be seen, wanted to go home. Police could not even bother to ask his name.
A civilian witness who was known to Latjor was said to be used as an attempt to "de-escalate the situation." This means there would have been time to also have other "professionals" step in to use other tactics besides various forms of "less-lethal" weapons such as tasers, baton launchers and a police service dog. The report states it "was not a safe situation for a mental health professional to engage the AP" and I wonder then what made them feel it was safe enough to use a civilian witness to talk with Latjor but not a mental health "professional"? I put that word in quotations because I do not think social workers, who work in tandem with police, are the answer; social work is just another arm of colonial violence, a profession rooted in mass displacement, family separation, forced treatment, and various abuse tactics. But if we are forced to play by their rules, then, at the very least, we should expect them to use the tools available to them.
"Police were responding to an assault call in a busy public place, not a mental health call. -- This was a police call, and police were the appropriate resource." This was a statement made by Calgary Police Service Chief Mark Neufeld in an article released February 22nd 2022. If someone if walking around with a weapon, attacking random people in the street and acting erratically, I think it's very safe to assume that there might be mental health issues present. The ASIRT report notes that "the AP continued to speak in a confusing manner, as he did for the entire encounter. -- what he did say did not appear to be connected to the situation." This acknowledges that WO1, WO2 and SO1 would have also understood that Latjor was not okay and most likely needed mental health support. However, rather than allow mental health "professionals" a chance to step in and try different tactics, police continued to surround Latjor while making a plan of attack. A tactical EMS paramedic did not arrive to the scene until 3:54, nearly 10 minutes after the first police officer arrived on-scene. I believe EMS were only present in preparation for the aftermath of what was about to happen.
"His tone and language were conversational. This continued when other officers such as WO2 were talking to the AP, and only changed when the AP started to run at officers."
The moment the situation escalated was when a police service dog was brought into the scene.
"My overriding concern with the tactics of the Calgary Police Service that day was how they used the dog. All that dog did was aggravate the situation." - Tom Engel, criminal defence lawyer
Dogs have been used as weapons by police for decades, particularly being used against Black enslaved people and Black civil rights protesters. Their racist use continues to this day, being deployed for everything from petty theft to locating evidence to more serious, violent situations. B.C. RCMP and its Lower Mainland Integrated Police Dog Services reported 193 bites in 2019. That same year, Vancouver police recorded 109 bites, according to the most recent data reported to B.C.’s police services director. Most Black people you speak with have a very valid fear of dogs, a fear that is written into our DNA. An aggressive police service dog is a triggering experience and Latjor's response is what should be justified here. However, of course, many people cared more about the dog in this situation, think pieces on Twitter showing more sympathy for an animal than for human life. Though, these same people don't have much to say about the health of police service dogs who are forced to go through brutal police training methods, or how they're deployed into "crowd control" situations where they are forced to breathe in toxic chemicals from things like tear gas (notice how police officers will show up in full riot gear, which includes masks, while their dogs go unprotected). Police service dogs often end up incredibly violent, even attacking on their own while "off-duty." Again, Latjor's response to a police dog coming towards him aggressively was a justified response. Sadly, this escalation is what essentially led to the murder of Latjor. Latjor was pronounced dead at 4:26PM from "multiple firearm injuries to body" after he felt threatened and had stabbed the police service dog. It's also not lost on me that officers handcuffed Latjor while he lay bleeding out on the sidewalk, EMS waiting 4 minutes to provide care while the police service dog was "rushed to an emergency vet hospital."
There had been a call-out made to community around 5PM asking for people to get to the No Frills in Forest Lawn as soon as possible, as a Black man had just been shot by police. After making arrangements for my daughter and picking up a friend, I arrived to the scene around 7PM. Near a bus stop, along the busy 17th Ave S.E. roadway, the body of Latjor laid covered under a yellow tarp, people coming and going through the parking lot as they did their evening grocery shopping. By the time I arrived, there was already a heavy police presence. At least 25 officers stood in a line stretched across the parking lot, standing behind police tape and blocking community members from getting near the body of Latjor. Unsurprisingly, many of the officers wore thin blue line patches while cracking jokes with one another, while community members cried, yelled and prayed in despair. At every moment police prove to us their sheer lack of empathy for the harm they cause and a lack of respect for those their actions impact.
16 Minutes
"They had waited for the AP to comply for 16 minutes before escalating to using force when the AP gave signs of increasing risk."
Police arrived to the scene at 3:46PM and Latjor was murdered by gunshots at 4:02PM. That's 16 minutes. Within that 16 minutes, police circled Latjor with various weapons, including a police service dog, and approached by yelling at him from a distance. "As more police officers arrived, they took up positions that contained the AP where he was but did not directly confront him. -- Officers with different use of force options arrived in the first few minutes of the interaction, which provided options to conclude the incident with less harm."
Part of my work with Walls Down Collective includes being a community "first responder" to situations that include various matters such as physical and verbal altercations, drug poisonings, people experiencing a mental health crisis, people fleeing abuse, resource connections and overall peer support. This type of community response was created after the murder of Latjor Tuel and the desperate need to keep our family, friends and neighbors safe from police violence. I have lost count of the amount of calls I have responded to. Despite the various calls that have involved violence and weapons, not once has someone died or been harmed in our care. Why? Because we are community members who give a fuck about the people. Not only are we showing up without uniforms or weapons, but we show up prepared to put in the time and care people need. Of course, not every situation has or will have the same desired outcome, but de-escalation begins before you even arrive - it's the way you see someone's humanity and hold space for them to be human; it's understanding people are more than this moment. Some calls I have responded to have lasted hours, even days. In that time, we are working closely with those involved to not only protect their well-being in that moment, but figuring out long-term strategies to support their long-term needs. Oftentimes we remain in contact for months to offer peer support and act as advocates so they have a better chance at accessing other resources. Police officers will never have this kind of patience or care; it's not what policing is created to do. Showing up in a uniform holding gun with an entire system behind you, people knowing the end result is handcuffs and a jail cell or worse, death, is never going to de-escalate a situation.
I intentionally made this piece a 16-minute read. The time it takes you to read this blog is the same amount of time police took to "de-escalate" and murder Latjor Tuel.
They Not Like Us
From the report: "Neither subject officer submitted to an interview with ASIRT. As the subjects of a criminal investigation, they are entitled to rely on their right to silence like any other person." Only, police are not "like any other person." Police are public servants, paid for by our tax dollars, who are protected to the highest extent by these systems. No other person would be able to kill someone then avoid any sort of charges or time inside a courtroom. Most likely, any other person would see time inside a jail cell, too.
From the report: "Where this force is intended or is likely to cause death or grievous bodily harm, the officer must believe on reasonable grounds that the force is necessary for the self-preservation of the officer or preservation of anyone under that officer’s protection."
I have a difficult time understanding how an investigator determines what the officer "believed" at the time without interviewing that officer and knowing what the officer was actually thinking in that moment. Something like this, where the Crown is assuming what the accused was believed to be thinking, would be objected in court.
From the report: "An analysis of police actions must recognize the dynamic situations in which officers often find themselves, and such analysis should not expect police officers to weigh alternatives in real time in the same way they can later be scrutinized in a stress-free environment. -- The law properly recognizes that police officers operate in dynamic situations and that decision-making in such a situation is different than a courtroom analysis."
This statement recognizes that these people understand the impact stress plays in our lives and the way we respond to the situations around us. If we should "not expect officers to weigh alternatives" during stressful situations, then it should also be understood the way regular people respond to the "dynamic situations" created in a capitalist, white supremacist society that has left people struggling mentally, physically, financially. It's now scientifically proven that poverty alone has a massive impact on our cognitive, emotional, and stress regulation systems. Parts of our brain become filled with stress as a result of being in a constant mode of flight or fight when we are deprived of basic material and emotional support (i.e., lack of food, shelter, education, and health-care) that our decision making abilities are consistently compromised. If police are just "like any other person," then surely these parallels can be made.
From the report: "Reasonableness looks at the use of force and the situation from an objective viewpoint. Police actions are not to be judged on a standard of perfection, but on a standard of reasonableness."
Once again, police are not "like any other person" when they are allowed to make the most "egregious mistakes" and it can be seen as just that: a mistake. For a group of individuals who are outfitted with weapons and extreme power, perfection is all we should expect. Individuals who have the power to play "God," using extreme bias to judge the actions of others, don't get to make mistakes when those mistakes cost people their lives in a variety of ways (being pushed through the legal system, ongoing police harassment, prison time, death).
As someone who has been under criminal investigation multiple times, now having experienced trial and the way video evidence is broken down step by step in slow motion, the interrogation on the stand to understand my motives and thoughts at the time of the situation, multiple people representing all sides asking questions to understand what happened, the process ASIRT takes is incredibly biased and one-sided. But that's the point - the law is suggestive, made up in a way to protect the ruling class.
“One of the commonly accepted norms of society as we know it is the law. Like the government and the state, laws are considered a reasonable component needed to maintain order. However, like the government and the state, it cannot be separated from its origins. Ruling classes shape the law based on preserving their own political, economic, and territorial interests, among other things. Additionally, issues like subjective morals, religious tenets, ethnicity, race, and more may play a role in what the laws are. Several factors must be considered to understand the partiality of the law. That’s why we shouldn’t be surprised as we see the state wielding laws against vulnerable people that were supposedly meant to protect them.” - William C. Anderson
What Now?
Family members of Latjor Tuel are pursuing a lawsuit against the Calgary Police Service, recognizing what happened to their beloved Latjor was unjust and demanding whatever justice they can receive in an unjust system. While nothing can bring back Latjor, his family deserves better than what has been provided to them. They deserve a form of closure that honors their humanity and that of Latjor. Even in death, especially so, a person deserves dignity. Between police news conferences, meetings had behind closed doors without prominent family members and a botched ASIRT report, there has been no care provided to anyone who has been impacted by the actions of the Calgary Police Service.
If at any moment you feel the need to call police, ask yourself "why?" Are you actually unsafe, or are you just uncomfortable? There is a major difference, and your uncomfortability or inconvenience may lead to the death of another person. Is there another option that could be utilized? In Calgary, you could reach out to us as (Walls Down Collective) as a first option: 587-969-6978. While HELP Team (previously DOAP Team) might respond to a call of a mental health crisis, they work in tandem with police and, more often than not, police will arrive with them if not first. I do not recommend this "alternative" - this is just another way police have embedded themselves into an area that should not concern them, while simultaneously draining us of public funding and resources that could be used towards ensuring our basic needs are met. Our safety and well-being remains in jeopardy when there are no other options besides police and prisons. As Mariame Kaba suggests, the question we should also ask ourselves is "why do we have no other well-resourced options?" Our liberation will not come without abolition, and it's long past "listening and learning" or asking "but what can we do?" There is no chance at healing from these atrocities when the harm remains ongoing. We must commit ourselves to practicing for the world we wish to see beyond just talking about it. Some of us practice every day and I invite you to do the same, because if those enslaved waited for their freedom to be granted by these systems, we'd still be in shackles. We must take our freedom into our own hands and that starts by making changes around us in our everyday lives. This is a call to action.
"Some people may ask, 'Does this mean that I can never call the cops if my life is in serious danger?' Abolition does not center that question. Instead, abolition challenges us to ask, 'Why do we have no other well-resourced options?' and pushes us to creatively consider how we can grow, build, and try other avenues to reduce harm. Repeated attempts to improve the sole option offered by the state, despite how consistently corrupt and injurious it has proven itself, will neither reduce nor address the harm that actually required the call. We need more and effective options for the greatest number of people." - Mariame Kaba
"Taylor McNallie dedicates her time to seeking racial justice and collective liberation through education and hands-on work with both marginalized communities and accomplices alike. As the co-creator of Inclusive Canada, she provides education on anti-racism, white supremacy, and anti-Blackness. She is also a member of the Walls Down Collective which provides access to no-barrier resources and care such as Harm Reduction, free food programs and an alternative to local policing."
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Etransfer & PayPal: tmcnallie@gmail.com
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