THUNDER BAY - Here are the top stories from December 2018, as selected by tbnewswatch.com editor Leith Dunick. We'll be rolling out our look back at the year gone throughout the rest of December, culminating with our most read stories of the year on Jan. 1.
- The Ontario Independent Police Review Board finally issued its report on the Thunder Bay Police Service, indicating once and for all that the department was guilty of systemic racism for its treatment of cases involving Indigenous people. Among the recommendations made by Gerry McNeilly was to reopen nine cases that the investigator believes police did not look into properly. Among the nine were four youth who died between 2000 and 2011 while in Thunder Bay attending school.
- On the heels of the OIPRD report, Senator Murray Sinclair released another damning missive, this time aimed at the Thunder Bay Police Services Board. The report, called for by the Ontario Civilian Police Commission, said the board failed to oversee the police department properly in the wake of complaints about how police treated Indigenous complaints and cases. The board was temporarily set aside, with administrator Thomas Lockwood given sole voting power until board members completed a training program.
- The search for a missing Indigenous teen turned tragic, when the body of 17-year-old Braiden Jacob was discovered at Chapples Park. A few days later police laid second-degree murder charges against 22-year-old Jonathan Yellowhead of Eabametoong First Nation.
- A video the purported to show a female Thunder Bay Police Service Officer striking an intoxicated Indigenous teen on a stretcher went viral and caused plenty of uproar throughout the community. The officer shouted “You do no spit on me,” to the 17-year-old from Nibinamik First Nation, before striking the youth, a student at the Matawa Learning Centre.
- Pikangikum First nation made history, becoming the first of 17 remote Indigenous communities to hook up to the Ontario power grid through the Wataynikaneyap Power Transmission Line project. The move, which was marked by the flipping of a switch to turn on the community’s first set of Christmas lights in more than a decade, ends Pikangikum’s reliance on diesel fuel for its power.
- Despite public protests, city council voted to close the 106-year-old Dease Pool, which opened in 1912, but would require more than a million dollars in repairs to remain open. Council considered a new pool, but decided to divert the $50,000 spent on the facility annually to other youth programming.
- City council launched a cannabis survey, asking the public to weigh in on the idea of a brick-and-mortar marijuana store in the city. The municipality has until mid-January to opt in or out, under rules set down by the Ontario government.
- A 27-year-old woman wanted on outstanding warrants was charged after allegedly taking off from police following a traffic stop and crashing through a Vickers Street sheet metal shop.
- Celina Reitberger was named chair of the aforementioned Thunder Bay Police Services Board, the first Indigenous woman to hold the post. She’s also the lone holdover allowed to return to the board following Senator Murray Sinclair’s report.
- A Simpson Street landlord took matters into his own hands, erecting a sign outside his apartment complex advertising a crack cocaine sale happening in one of the units. Norm Staal said he tried to evict the alleged drug dealer, but to no avail.
