After a week, what do we know about the Saskatchewan stabbing spree?

Clip You’re listening to Frequency Podcast Network production in association with City News.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Since Miles Sanderson began a stabbing spree that left eleven dead and 18 injured. And there is much we now know that we didn’t know then about Sanderson himself, about his victims and their community, about the RCMP response, the province wide manhunt, and how Miles Sanderson ended up dead in police custody. But there are still mysteries here. And only by continually asking questions of the police, of witnesses, of reporters on the ground, will Canadians learn the answers. So today, more than a week later, we’ll try to get a sense of what really happened last week in Saskatchewan. You may have heard me say this last week, but in the middle of a massive breaking news story, it’s very difficult to find context or understanding. They only come with time and answers. In fact, in the early days of a huge story, like perhaps the most deadly stabbing spree in Canadian history, even the actual facts can be hard to come by. They tend to emerge one by one over the next few days and weeks as we learn more. By now, it has been more than a week. I’m Jordan Heath-rawings. This is The Big Story. Jana Pruden is a feature writer for the Global Mail. She’s covered crime for many years. She’s even written two books about crime in Saskatchewan.

Jordan Hello, Janna.

Jana Pruden Hello.

Jordan Can you maybe start I know this is a week later, but now that we kind of have a better assessment of what happened, can you just outline for us the attacks and the four day manhunt? When did we realize something was horribly wrong in Saskatchewan?

Jana Pruden Yeah, it really was Sunday morning. We now know that the first 911 call comes in around 05:40 a.m., and that officers got to the scene around 06:18 a.m.. But for the rest of us in the public, the first sign really would have been around quarter after seven when the RCMP released a public alert that there was a dangerous person on the loose. Now that alert came out, I got that actually in my, inbox checking my email on a Sunday. But those alerts are not completely infrequent, not totally uncommon. And I think that it was really a couple of hours later that morning when word started to get out that something had happened that was really bad on the First Nation and someone like myself, I was sort of seeing some of my people in Saskatchewan talking about something really bad happening. And although I wasn’t working that day, I ended up calling into the RCMP press conference that afternoon. And that’s when we heard that there were at least ten people dead. And at the time I think they were saying 15 injured. And of course, that’s when we all knew in the press and soon the public that there was a very serious situation unfolding in Saskatchewan.

Jordan In a moment, I’ll ask you about the logistics of the manhunt. But maybe first with the benefit of hindsight now, how did the RCMP respond in the moments when it became clear that there was a killer on the loose? This is obviously something the RCMP has dealt with and been criticized for in recent years.

Jana Pruden Yeah, I think the full RCMP response will, I’m sure, be very parsed, and there may even be an inquiry, as sometimes happen in a case of this magnitude. But from what we know so far, those early hours, they appear to have acted very quickly. The 911 call comes in at 540. The officers get there at 618. There is quite a large distance between the detachment and the James Smith Cremation. So we understand they were dispatched within three minutes and they went straight there. So that timing all makes sense. And then the alert is released at 712. So that is less than an hour later. That still may seem like a long time, but considering all the things that have to happen to make sure that the alert goes out, that it’s accurate, that does take time, and certainly not the kind of delay and not the kind of things that we’ve seen criticized coming out of Nova Scotia and Portapique. So it appears that there were a lot of lessons learned, and that in this case, every effort was made to identify that this was a threat to the public, that it was potentially an ongoing situation, and to get the word out there as soon as possible. And one of the things that I saw on social media or critiques I heard from people around by the end of the week, is that they were tired of getting these alerts and found there were too many alerts. So I think the RCMP really has taken it seriously that the public needs to be notified and notified as soon as possible when there’s a serious situation ongoing.

Jordan Can you explain maybe a little bit more about the multiple places that there were attacks? I mean, now, again later, we sort of know that most of the fatalities were on James Smith Cree Nation, but in the hours afterwards, we heard that there were several crime scenes at various locations. Does that hold up? Like, can you sort of take us into that detail?

Jana Pruden Yeah. So the RCMP said that they originally said ten deceased and 15 injured. That later rose to 18 injured between 13 scenes. And although we don’t have an exact list of locations, from what we have been able to put together, I believe that that makes sense to me, keeping in mind that, say, a scene within a home and then another fatality outside would be two separate crime scenes. So with the sheer number of people injured and killed, that doesn’t entirely surprise me. As you know, there was some question of where all of these things happened. And since then, we’ve determined that all of the fatal victims, except one, were in the James Smith Cree Nation. And then there was one gentleman in a nearby town, and then there is an 11th fatality, which is Damien Sanderson, who was originally identified as a suspect and was later found deceased. Out of the 18 who were injured, I personally have confirmation that 15 are from the First Nation. I don’t know if the other three are from other communities or if they were people who did not immediately seek treatment and so weren’t immediately confirmed to be on this list. But what we do know is that absolutely, almost all of the attacks took place within the community except for one fatality.

Jordan What do we know about Damien Sanderson’s involvement or non involvement? Is he still considered a suspect?

Jana Pruden Well, that’s a really good question. I think that’s a question that a lot of us are thinking a lot about and have been working on in the past few days and trying to determine. So the last statement that we received from police commanding officer Rhonda Blackmore, she did say that Damien was still considered to have been a suspect. Now, he had been charged with one count of first degree murder. People may recall he was originally identified as a suspect who was wanted along with his brother. And then on Monday is when his body was found in the tall grasses near one of the other scenes in the community. There’s a lot of people who say that he was not a suspect at all and that he was only a victim. I think that’s a detail that we are going to hear a lot more about in the days to come, and that I know reporters like myself and my colleagues are working very hard to figure out.

Jordan I’m not sure if you know anything about this or even if we’ll ever know this, but do we know where and why these attacks started? Was there a catalyst for Miles, I guess, and or Damien Sanderson that began this? And if we don’t know that, then do we at least know where they began?

Jana Pruden Yeah, that’s a really good question, and it’s something that we’re working on continuing to report pretty intensively this week what may have happened. We’ve heard some things about the state that Miles was in on Friday night. That’s something that we’re chasing, and then, of course, this unfolds on Sunday. We believe at this point that the attack began at the house of Bonnie and a man known as Buggy Burns. In a press release, Mark Arcand, he’s a tribal chief from Saskatoon, but was speaking in this capacity as a grieving relative. He said that he believes that Miles and Damien went to the home of Bonnie and Buggy Burns to speak to or confront or to see Bonnie and Buggy’s adult son, Gregory Burns. It sounds like Miles and Damien go there, and an incident happened with Gregory in which Gregory is stabbed and killed. At some point, his mother, Bonnie, runs outside, Bonnie is also killed. And another woman, Gloria Burns, who’s a community crisis worker who had come to the scene, she is also there, and she also gets stabbed and killed. And that seems to be the beginning of the spree that then goes on, of course, to several other houses and outside of the community as well.

Jordan Now, I do want to ask you about the manhunt that went on for four days and had three provinces on alert. And maybe the first thing I’ll ask you, as somebody who has covered crime in Saskatchewan, many or most of our listeners haven’t been there and certainly don’t know much about rural Saskatchewan. How do you conduct a manhunt in an area so vast like that? Maybe just describe what they were trying to do?

Jana Pruden Yeah. I mean. I think part of the problem is when someone has a vehicle and there’s a very large amount of space. It’s not necessarily a hunt like dogs tracking down by the water for a robbery suspect runs away on foot. And you get the police dogs there and they can do a very intensive search in a small amount of area here. Similar to Portapique. Similar to the manhunt. People may remember a few years ago in northern BC, northern Alberta, northern Manitoba, two young men who committed some murders up there, you have an incredibly large amount of space. And there had been one sighting of a vehicle that Miles and at that point, Damien, were believed to be in. It was seen in central Regina. We still to this day don’t really know if that was a real sighting or not, or if it was them or if it was just a suspect vehicle. That’s a question mark. The police chief there had said it was seen and then it was later confirmed. So there’s an assumption that maybe the vehicle was caught on video or something, but we don’t fully know who was in the vehicle or if it was them. And then hours passed throughout the days of the search. Police did say for at least a couple of days that they still believed that Miles might be in Regina. There was an emergency alert issued when there was a potential sighting back on the James Smith Cree Nation. All of the towns in that area were on high alert. And I think it was easy because of the way that the search unfolded, that it was happening in a lot of places, that there weren’t tactical teams combing around one field or something. It could have been easy to think that a search was not happening or that it wasn’t too intense. I think what we really have heard from RCMP is that there was very intensive searching happening using all of the latest technology. There are some resources that were brought in from other provinces that RCMP and Saskatchewan didn’t have. So there was an intensive search occurring at all times. Of course, RCMP almost better than anyone understood the full scope of the threat that was out there and in the end they did locate him.

Jordan What do we know about how the manhunt ended?

Jana Pruden Well, we know that at 02:00 p.m. on Wednesday, someone in the town of Waka reported a break in enter and that he was seeing it was a positive identification of Miles, that he had a knife at the time, and that he stole a white Chevy Avalanche from that property and went on the run. There was another emergency alert issued. The province was really on high alert. I have friends and relatives there. I was of course, monitoring various Facebook groups and places where people were expressing their feelings at the time and people were very scared. So he’s seen in the area. This alert goes out and then the vehicle is spotted on highway Eleven south of Roster and by an RCMP officer and an unmarked vehicle. There were a lot of vehicles in the province at the time. RCMP vehicles everywhere marked and unmarked. We have a plane pulling up to the highway, lots of reports of a chase that occurs on the highway and of course people passing some of them pulled out cameras and recorded moments of it. The RCMP, due to the speeds he was traveling, they estimated 150 km an hour. They forced him off the road. He was taken from the vehicle by RCMP and appeared to be uninjured. There’s images of him being arrested and he’s standing. He doesn’t appear to have a major amount of blood on him or anything like that. He’s taken into custody along the highway and then he dies in police custody. Later that day.

Jordan We did see pictures of him seemingly okay being arrested and then we heard this announcement that he was dead. And I believe what the RCMP said is that he was in medical distress and he passed away. Do we know what that means? Will we ever find out what happened here?

Jana Pruden I think we may not find out everything that happened over the course of this week, but I do believe we will find out his cause of death. As you say, he did look okay when he was seen in those videos. The RCMP said he went into medical distress, that he was given all possible medical interventions by RCMP until EMS could get there. He was rushed by ambulance to hospital, but he was pronounced dead there. Some sources have told us and others that it was a drug overdose. There’s no confirmation from RCMP on that. Commanding Officer Rhonda Blackmore would not confirm whether he was, — lifesaving measures that was taken at the scene when he went into medical distress. And she said, I think fairly that she wasn’t going to speak to his cause of death until there was an autopsy. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing to wait until that’s confirmed. There’s also an independent investigation that the RCMP have requested from independent investigators, police and the Saskatchewan sort of investigative unit that looks into police injuries or fatalities. Right. So there will be an investigation, and I do expect we will learn how he died as a matter of public accountability and transparency.

Jordan Speaking of transparency, it’s great that we will hopefully figure out how he died. But one of the things that a lot of people who have followed the RCMP or even just covered crime in Canada in general, have been saying is now that Miles Sanderson is dead, how much will we ever really find out about what happened here and why? And again, you mentioned Portapique earlier in this chat. Once the suspect is gone, there tends to be a lot less transparency from the police without a trial.

Jana Pruden Yeah, I mean, I wouldn’t necessarily say that ends up with less transparency by police, but yes, there is no trial where the evidence is tested in a public forum. There will could be an inquiry, in which case we often get way more information than we would get from a trial. One thing I would say is having covered, unfortunately, a lot of multiple murders and a few mass murders, is that even if the person does not die, we often never get a satisfying reason.

Jordan Why?

Jana Pruden Because there’s not ever a satisfying reason, really. We’re starting to hear some things about Miles. We know about his criminal history. We know about a domestic violence history, issues with drugs and alcohol that he wasn’t following court orders, things like that. He’d been out of prison relatively recently. Will we ever figure out what made him commit this truly horrendous act of violence? We may get some pieces around the edges, but I’m sure that the real reason, if there is one, will never be known.

Jordan Do you think there will be more reporting out of this around the parole board and the justice system in general, given his extensive I mean, neither you or I need to list them here, but extensive criminal history and the fact that he was, I guess, on early release as this happened?

Jana Pruden Yeah, I mean, someone who has done a lot of reporting about the parole system and the justice system, the reporting is out there. This is not the first time that those systems have come out of scrutiny. One thing that I do think is really important to correct, because there’s a lot of misunderstanding of the parole system. He wasn’t released on early parole. He was released on statutory release, which is where all offenders are sort of presumed to be released at two thirds of their sentence. And the purpose of that is really to release someone into the community with supports and conditions so that hopefully they can be stable enough that when their sentence expires, they are not as great a risk to the public. Right. So if you hold someone to warrant expiry, meaning the very last day of their sentence, then suddenly they’re just like out in the community with no support, no conditions around the things that may be issues for them. So with someone like Miles, where domestic violence, drug and alcohol problems were identified as triggers and as concerning behaviours, getting out on stat release means that you have a parole officer, you have conditions not to drink, you have conditions not to be in contact with your domestic partner. He had a condition to report any new relationships. So there is a reason why the system works like that. I guess there will be some questions here about is that the thing that failed? Is the sentence the thing that failed? The sentence wasn’t long enough. Did systems earlier in his life fail? All of those will be questions. And I think it’s always good to reassess how these systems work and how they serve the public and maybe how sometimes they don’t. But I also think I see sometimes in the wake of a really horrible situation like this, there’s a desire to change something so it will never happen again. And sometimes the system has worked like nine, hundred and ninety nine, times, and the one time it doesn’t, it’s devastating. But I’m not sure if always changing the system is the thing that fixes that. But I don’t know. We don’t know all the details here yet, and I certainly won’t be the one in charge of making that decision.

Jordan You mentioned the community, and I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you about James Cree First Nation. I know that some of the elders have spoken about the need for privacy around the victims and their family.But what have people from the community said in the wake of this and what do they need right now?

Jana Pruden That’s a really good question. I think it’s almost impossible to imagine what it must be like to have this, many losses in a small community, a small, relatively tight knit community. The chiefs who were speaking at the press conference the other day, they’re not only leaders of the community, they all have been affected by this. Everyone in the community knows someone is related to someone who died. So coming from the outside, I think it’s really almost impossible to imagine what they will go through as a community. The chiefs and community leaders in their press conference last week, and the premier was there, our RCMP representatives were there, were calling for donations that can help with trauma in the community. They were calling for additional supports, really a focus on long term healing, long term changes. I think we’re starting to see in the early days, very few people were speaking to the media. And of course, it’s not nice when the media descends on your community in the wake of something like this. We’re definitely starting to see some people wanting to share a bit about their loved ones and the people whose lives were lost. And then bigger questions about policing on First Nations, you know, having officers that can respond more quickly than our RCMP can get to a scene. So I think there’s a lot of really complex things that could help, that may help ideas that are being considered, and those are things that are going to keep emerging in the days and weeks to come. Having worked with a lot of communities after tragic events, we are still in the shock phase. We’re still in the very early days. We’re a few days after his arrest and then death. And we’re really at the beginning of a very, very long journey of trauma and healing in this community and in the whole province, because these incidents obviously affect many more people than just those who directly lose someone.

Jordan Last question, and I know you mentioned that you and your colleagues are reporting pretty intensively this week. What comes next? What are we still waiting for from the RCMP, if anything? Do you guys have a timeline of what you’re chasing next?

Jana Pruden I think some of those big questions have to do with the role that Damien had, whether he was a suspect in any of them or whether he was a victim from the very beginning. More about the victims. I personally believe really strongly in telling stories of victims, those who survived the attack, those who didn’t. I think it’s really important to know that these are people. They’re not just names or numbers on a page. And so the more that we can get to know about who people were and who they were to the people who loved them and how they’ll be remembered, I think is really important reporting. I know there are some extremely harrowing stories from those who are hurt, but who survived this attack, and then, of course, continuing to examine the systems around Miles life and what could have been done differently and whether there’s lessons that can help prevent and respond to crises like this in the future.

Jordan Jana, thank you so much for this, and good luck getting those answers.

Jana Pruden Yeah, thank you so much.

Jordan Jana Pruden. Saskatchewan reporter for the globe and mail. That was The Big Story. We talked today about Miles Sanderson. What I would like to do is make sure you know the names of his victims. They are.

Thomas Burns.

Carol Burns.

Gregory Burns.

Lydia Gloria Burns.

Bonnie Burns.

Earl Burns.

Lana Head.

Christian Head.

Robert Sanderson.

Wesley Petterson.

All of the victims were residents of James Smith Cree Nation, apart from Wesley Petterson, who lived in Weldon.

You can find The Big Story at thebigstorypodcast dot CA and on Twitter at thebigstory FPN, thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.