SQ officers were left with bruises and a torched cruiser after a run-in with young Mi’gmaqs in Restigouche.
Accounts vary as to what exactly occurred June 9. The reserve’s chief and director of the Mi’gmaq Peacekeepers both say that two SQ officers drove through Restigouche in defiance of a police agreement which requires the SQ to notify Mi’gmaq Peacekeepers when entering the community. The SQ officers made a “lewd gesture” to some young Mi’gmaqs, who responded in kind. The officers then left their vehicle and gave chase to a group of Mi’gmaqs, at one point pulling a gun and calling one Mi’gmaq women a “squaw.”
This did not sit well with members of the woman’s family, who jumped to her defense. A scuffle ensued, ending only when the officers managed to flee by commandeering a car belonging to the Mi’gmaq Peacekeepers, which they abandoned in a nearby village. Their SQ patrol car was subsequently crushed and set afire.
The SQ version is slightly different. The officers claim they entered the reserve only after a rock was thrown unprovoked through their back window. The officers deny that they commandeered another vehicle, and insist they were driven to safety by the Mi’gmaq Peacekeepers.
The incident led the SQ to increase the number of officers at its nearby Matapedia detachment from 15 to 40. This provoked a protest march by Restigouche residents who blocked Highway 132 between midnight and 6:45 a.m. on June 11. They fear that the additional officers will only increase the tensions. The blockade was lifted voluntarily by the Mi’gmaqs.
“None of this should have happened,” said Henry Michell, Resti-gouche’s director of public security.
“And if they had called us first as they’re supposed to, none of it would have happened.” Public Security Minister Robert Middlemiss said the attack “will not go unpunished.”
