Fears high as Canadian police search for stabbing suspect

JAMES SMITH CREE FIRST NATION, Saskatchewan — Fears ran high Tuesday on an Indigenous reserve in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan after police warned that the suspect in a deadly stabbing rampage over the weekend might be nearby and officers surrounded a house with guns drawn.

Police later sent out an alert that it was a false alarm and they had determined the suspect was not in the community but people remained nervous with his whereabouts unknown and a province-wide alert still in effect.

People on the James Smith Cree First Nation reserve were earlier told to stay inside. An Associated Press reporter saw people running and screaming as police shut down roads.

The fugitive’s brother and fellow suspect, Damien Sanderson was found dead Monday near the stabbing sites.

Police are investigating whether Myles Sanderson killed his brother.

The brothers are accused of killing 10 people and wounding 18.

Leaders of the James Smith Cree Nation, where most of the stabbing attacks took place, blamed the killings on drug and alcohol abuse plaguing the community, which they said was a legacy of the colonization of Indigenous people.

James Smith Cree Nation resident Darryl Burns and his brother, Ivor Wayne Burns, said their sister, Gloria Lydia Burns, was a first responder who was killed while responding to a call. Burns said his 62-year-old sister was on a crisis response team.

“She went on a call to a house and she got caught up in the violence,” he said. “She was there to help. She was a hero.”

He blamed drugs and pointed to colonization for the rampant drug and alcohol use on reserves.

“We had a murder suicide here three years ago. My granddaughter and her boyfriend. Last year we had a double homicide. Now this year we have 10 more that have passed away and all because of drugs and alcohol,” Darryl Burns said.

Ivor Wayne Burns also blamed drugs for his sister’s death and said the suspect brothers should not be hated.

“We have to forgive them boys,” he said. “When you are doing hard drugs, when you are doing coke, and when you are doing heroin and crystal meth and those things, you are incapable of feeling. You stab somebody and you think it’s funny. You stab them again and you laugh.”

Blackmore said police were still determining the motive, but the chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations echoes suggestions the stabbings could be drug-related.

“This is the destruction we face when harmful illegal drugs invade our communities, and we demand all authorities to take direction from the chiefs and councils and their membership to create safer and healthier communities for our people,” said Chief Bobby Cameron.