11/4/2022 0 Comments Samson draft controlThe Crown corporation that runs Manitoba’s liquor stores now keeps an active list of people charged-not convicted-for theft on its website. Several of these policies have been called for and supported by the Manitoba NDP and Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union (MGEU). A severe and deadly ratcheting up in carceral infrastructure has been introduced in its wake, including the introduction of secure entrances, the hiring of police officers and “loss prevention officers,” and the assigning of a special Crown prosecutor to expedite the conviction of alleged thieves. The arrests and humiliation of the three Indigenous girls in mid-January and the police killing of Eishia Hudson in early April are only two of the countless examples of anti-Indigenous violence triggered by the moral panic about liquor store thefts in early 2019. If the store had not summoned police to defend its property via a high-speed chase that greatly escalated the situation, there is a very high likelihood that Hudson would still be alive today. Cops were called and engaged in a pursuit of the allegedly stolen vehicle she was driving. Hudson, who was Indigenous, had allegedly participated in the theft of alcohol from a liquor store. Less than three months after the incident Samson witnessed, 16-year-old Eishia Hudson was shot to death by Winnipeg Police officers. Samson never received a response from the provincial Crown corporation to his complaint. “The recent heightened security protocols MLLC has introduced are directly to blame and should be suspended immediately.” “The fact that these three young Indigenous women were assaulted by officers and jeered at by members of the public at the historical site of a displaced Métis community should make us all doubly and deeply ashamed,” Samson wrote in his complaint, referencing the Rooster Town settlement that was bulldozed in the 1950s to build the mall where the liquor store is. As he sat with the girls, passerbys insulted the youth as “low-lifes” and “criminals.” Once police arrived, Samson asked to accompany the girls to the car to ensure they weren’t further harmed-and was threatened with arrest by one of the cops. Samson’s complaints about the handling of the situation were ridiculed by officers at the scene. “The officers then forced the girls to sit in an uncomfortable and humiliating position on a hard floor, handcuffed and visible to the public, and spoke to the girls in a demeaning manner while waiting for police to arrive.” “As I arrived at the scene, I saw one officer lean on a prone girl’s back to apply handcuffs, and another push one of the children face-first into the window of the store,” wrote Samson in a letter to Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries Corporation a few days later. Samson witnessed several plainclothes “loss prevention officers” violently handcuffing three Indigenous girls for alleged theft from a liquor store. On a Saturday afternoon in mid-January, Winnipeg musician John K.
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