Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Neighbourhood Activity Home: Sergeant Keith Briant

The Stonechild Inquiry recommendations included the following:

3. That the Minister of Justice establish an advisory board composed of Police Service members charged with recruitment, representatives of the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities and representatives from the private and public sectors who are knowledgeable about employee recruitment. The purpose of the board will be to recommend programs to encourage First Nations persons to enter Municipal Police Service.

The Saskatoon Police Service is considering lowering its admission standards to attract Aboriginals to join the Police Service. When one looks at the history of Saskatoon Police Officers the standards are extremely low or the standards are not being applied. The Police Service has a documented history of racism, incompetence and deprived leadership. When the second in command is found guilty of malicious prosecution along with a public prosecutor and a child therapist and no one is held accountable it is not only the Saskatoon Police Service that has a lack of standards, morals ethics, and values.

Sergeant Keith Briant, Saskatoon City Police Service, Saskatoon Tribal Council and Pleasant Hill Community Association have been working to rise money for a Neighbourhood Activity Home. The work that Sergeant Briant is doing will raise the standards for future Aboriginal police officers. Hopefully some of the youth will go on to join the police service instead of a Saskatoon street gang.

Sgt. Briant: "Hopefully if successful, and I'm talking about reduction in crime, a better healing for the community if it can be established then hopefully we can establish this in other areas of the city."

Chief Glenn Johnstone, Saskatoon Tribal Council: "It gives good hope to the community and our First Nations in the community, we can work together and there are possibilities. And those possibilities can be unlimited."

The citizens of Saskatoon have paid millions as a result of corrupt police officers. The StarPhoenix has for the past 15 years detailed this racism and rot within the Saskatoon Police Service. Just for once I would like to see a feature story about one of the many fine police officers working to help the citizens and working towards making Saskatoon a city to be proud of again.

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