Canadian Press
Quebec, Canada (CP) -- Quebec provincial police and RCMP officers will jointly patrol with Mohawk police in the troubled Kanesatake community near Montreal, Public Security Minister Jacques Chagnon said Wednesday.
Chagnon made the announcement following meetings with Grand Chief James Gabriel to find a solution to the policing problem in the community which was the site of a deadly land claims standoff in 1990 where one provincial police officer was shot dead.
Dissident band members, who are challenging Gabriel’s authority, said they fear the worst if the RCMP and Quebec provincial police help out with patrolling the community.
“People don’t want the RCMP and people don’t want the goon squad,” said band chief Pearl Bonspille, who accused Gabriel and Chagnon of looking for trouble.
“They don’t want solutions,” she told RDI, Radio-Canada’s all-news channel. “They want confrontation. They want bloodshed and people will die here if this is not stopped.”
Chief Steven Bonspille said the Mohawk settlement wants peace and Chagnon and Gabriel aren’t taking the right path to get it.
“It’s the way to have war here _ that’s all,” he said.
The patrols were to begin Wednesday afternoon and provincial police were to provide liaison between the three forces, Chagnon said.
The assistance came after a request from Kanesatake police chief Ed Thompson, who has been unable to get his new police force into the community.
Protesters have hurled objects at aboriginal police trying to enter Kanesatake and three officers were injured in a clash earlier this week.
Chagnon appealed for calm but said the government would not tolerate masked protesters preventing police from doing their job.
Kanesatake has been simmering over policing since February when Gabriel brought in a force of aboriginal officers from other communities in an effort he said was aimed at cracking down on organized crime.
Opponents to the plan surrounded the Kanesatake police station, forcing the officers to remain inside. Roads around the community were also blocked and Gabriel was forced to flee after his house was burned.
The standoff only ended after the Quebec and federal governments brokered a deal among the community’s police commission members.