An apology ceremony was held earlier today in Bella Coola in order to help provide some closure to a Heiltsuk man and his Granddaughter.
Maxwell Johnson and his then 12-year-old granddaughter were detained and handcuffed after trying to open an account for the girl at a downtown Vancouver Bank of Montreal branch in December of 2019.
But the ceremony did not go quite as planned since the two officers responsible for the arrests did not come to the ceremony.
Vancouver’s Police Board were not able to give a reason as to why the officers did not attend.
The ceremony was meant to mark the start of co-operation between the board, the Heiltsuk, and the Union of B-C Indian Chiefs as part of initiatives under the settlement announced in September.
Instead the ceremony had to be converted to an uplifting ceremony for the Johnsons and Heiltsuk leaders were left to question when their fight against systemic racism will end after the officers no showed the event.
Comments