Advocates and family of man shot by RCMP launch ‘people’s tribunal’ to probe police

The prosecution service last year declined to lay charges against the three officers involved in the shooting.

The service said Lowndes, who was the subject of an arrest warrant, had reversed his vehicle into a police vehicle, tried to use bear-spray on officers and stabbed a police dog to death before he was shot.

Holland says she has been doing everything she can to seek justice for Lowndes and other Indigenous people who have been killed by police in the province.

“The only spark of life that we have is that our loved ones are pushing us because if we don’t speak out … they will keep killing us,” she said.

The B.C. RCMP did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the People’s Tribunal.

“Systemic racism fuels an epidemic of police violence” against these communities, said a news release from the groups behind the tribunal, which includes the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, Pivot Legal Society, Care not Cops and Justice for Jared.

Holland said her son was reading Schindler’s List by the time he was 12, that he always did his best to take care of people, hugged everyone he knew and helped his elders.

“It just seems impossible, and the only way for our family and (other) families to have any justice, to find any semblance of justice, is to have a People’s Tribunal,” said Holland.

Holland said the tribunal will offer a chance for members and families who lost their loved ones due to police violence to talk about racism and other unlawful practices within Canada’s police forces.

The tribunal will gather and share information about crimes by police, the groups say.

Tracking of police-involved deaths in Canada shows Black people died at six times the rate of their white counterparts, while Indigenous people die at eight times the rate of those who are white, the groups say.

The tribunal’s first event was to be held Saturday in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside before travelling across B.C.

Latoya Farrell, policy staff counsel with the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, said Indigenous communities have been over-policed and under-protected, and the forum could shine a light on systemic failures of law enforcement and the legal system.

“We’ve seen time and time again that the narrative in the public is often detrimental to the credibility of both the community and the person who was killed,” she said. “We see that the state and police control that narrative in a way to denigrate from a person’s characteristic in order to justify why they deserve to be killed.”

She said having the tribunal will allow families to “take back that narrative,” to tell their side of the story and to “rectify the harm” that the authority has done to their loved ones, not just in killing them but harming their memory and legacy.

Holland said now is also a “critical time” for members of the Indigenous community to rally together given there has been so much news lately, with politicians denying remains found at former residential school sites and Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim’s leaked memo that suggested relocating Indigenous people from the Downtown Eastside.

Meenakshi Mannoe, representing the advocacy group Defund 604, said the tribunal could help provide oversight of police.

“It’s a community-based forum that’s going to uplift the voices of directly impacted family members, rather than investing power in colonial tools of government and lawyers and academics. It’s putting that power back into the hands of community,” said Mannoe.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 14, 2025.

Nono Shen, The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Advocates and family of man shot by RCMP launch ‘people’s tribunal’ to probe police

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