Native Parentectomy

November 3, 2012 permalink

A video posted to Facebook by Trina Francois (local copy mp4) shows a native mother arguing with child protectors seizing her children. There is no information on date, place or names, but comments suggest the incident occurred recently near Winnipeg.

Addendum: APTN has a story on this abudction.

expand

collapse

Winnipeg police reviewing gripping video of confrontation with Cree woman and child services

08. Nov, 2012 by APTN National News

EDITOR’S NOTE: APTN National News has edited this video posted to our Facebook site on November 2. The new version removes the names of the children to protect their identity and has been posted to APTN’s Facebook and at aptn.ca/news. All other aspects of the video remain intact. APTN National News will continue to follow this story.

WINNIPEG–The Winnipeg police is reviewing an online video that captured the raw emotion of a Cree woman after child care workers arrived at her home to seize her children.

The video uploaded onto APTN National News Facebook page shows the woman, who can’t be named because child services is involved, twice being confronted by Winnipeg police officers while recording them.

The video has been shared over 2,000 times on Facebook and has nearly 4,000 hits on YouTube.

The woman told APTN National News that police handcuffed her and put her briefly into a police cruiser before releasing her without charges.

A spokesperson for the Winnipeg police said the “matter was being reviewed.” The spokesperson said the woman can contact the police’s Law Enforcement Review Agency “if she feels police members acted improperly.”

The nearly four minute long video begins in her home with an officer at the door. They say they are there for her children.

“This has gone on too long with these people taking our children because of … their ignorance. It’s pretty ignorant that I have to be treated like this,” the mother says.

She then gets a telephone call and says the police are there to take the children but says to the caller the children aren’t home.

The police then ask for the children by name and that they are there to “apprehend” them.

Police said they explained to the woman what’s going on.

Two more officers appear and one seen clearly on the video approaches the woman and appears to reach for the camera and asks her to move to the side and tells her to stay calm.

There appears to be a bit of a struggle as he tries to move the woman for unknown reasons.

“Don’t fight,” the officer says.

“I’m not fighting I’m going next door,” the woman yells. “I’m going next door. I’m not fighting.”

“Enough. Enough,” the unidentified officer says.

“No,” she says.

“Enough,” the officer replies.

“Let go of me,” she screams.

“She hasn’t done anything. Let her go,” another woman says.

The woman then walks over to an SUV parked next to the police cruisers and asks a child services worker in the driver seat repeatedly why police are doing this.

“You know I take care of my children. I don’t drink. I don’t do drugs. What’s your problem?” the woman asks. “What is it? What is it?

“You can explain it to the judge,” the child care worker replies.

“You can explain to all First Nations that you are stealing children,” the woman says.

Then the woman is approached by a male officer who isn’t seen. A struggle ensues.

The officer tells her to put her hands on the car and the demands she put them behind her back while the woman screams she didn’t do anything.

“Please don’t do this to me,” she says and the video ends.

The woman, who says she is a traditional healer, told APTN National News the moment police put their hands on her she felt and understood the pain of residential school survivors who had come to her for healing.

“I felt it in my heart all in one shot,” she said. “I felt it personally….I never thought this would still be happening.”

Source: Aboriginal Peoples Television Network

A YouTube video has the picture upright (local copy mp4).

There is a Facebook group Reunite Trina Francois With Her Children.