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JAMES SMITH CREE NATION, Saskatchewan (AP) \u2014 As a Canadian Indigenous community comes to grips with a deadly stabbing rampage by two of its own, many blamed rampant drug and alcohol use that they linked to government failures \u2014 and others asked why the chief suspect had been recently freed from prison despite a long history of violence.<\/p>\n
Myles Sanderson, has 59 criminal convictions, according to parole documents. He\u2019d been serving a sentence of four years and four months on charges that included assault with a weapon, assault on a peace officer and robbery when he was released.<\/p>\n
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said he\u2019s been told by the parole board there will be an investigation into its assessment of Myles Sanderson, who remained a fugitive and the subject of a large-scale manhunt on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want the know the reasons behind the decision\u201d to release him, he said. \u201cI\u2019m extremely concerned with what occurred here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many of his past crimes happened when he was intoxicated, and he told parole officials substance use made him out of his mind. He had been sought for a parole violation since May.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe drug problem and the alcohol problem on these reserves is way out of hand,\u201d said Ivor Wayne Burns, whose sister was killed in the weekend attacks. \u201cWe have dead people and we asked before for something to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sanderson, 32, and his brother Damien, are accused of killing 10 people and wounding 18 others in the attacks that spread across the rural reserve and into the nearby town of Weldon, Saskatchewan. Damien\u2019s body was found Monday near the attacks, and police were investigating whether his brother killed him.<\/p>\n
The Saskatchewan Coroner\u2019s Service said Wednesday that nine of those killed were from James Smith Cree Nation: Thomas Burns, 23; Carol Burns, 46; Gregory Burns, 28; Lydia Gloria Burns, 61; Bonnie Burns, 48; Earl Burns, 66; Lana Head, 49; Christian Head, 54, and Robert Sanderson, 49, One was from Weldon, 78-year Wesley Patterson.<\/p>\n
The coroner\u2019s service and police said they will not identify or confirm any of the relationships of the individuals identified.<\/p>\n
The reserve, population of about 1,900, gets its name from a chief who signed an agreement over lands with the Canadian Crown and other tribes in 1876, according to its website. More tribal members live off the reserve, for about 3,400 members total.<\/p>\n
Like many Canadian Indigenous communities, it has been scarred by a dark history.<\/p>\n
From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 native children in Canada were ripped from their families and placed in government-funded Christian residential boarding schools. The aim was to Christianize and assimilate them into mainstream society, which previous Canadian governments considered superior.<\/p>\n
Indigenous leaders blame the legacy of abuse and isolation at those schools as a root cause of the epidemic rates of alcohol and drug addiction now on Canadian reservations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis 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,\u201d said Chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations.<\/p>\n
The parole board cited the intergenerational impacts of residential schools, saying it may have contributed to Myles Sanderson\u2019s criminal past. It wasn\u2019t clear, though, whether the brothers or family members attended the schools.<\/p>\n
Myles Sanderson\u2019s childhood was marked by violence, neglect and substance abuse and led to a \u201ccycle of substance abuse, seeking out negative peers and violent behavior,\u201d the parole documents said. He lived between his father\u2019s home in a city and grandparents\u2019 house on a reserve. There was violence and abuse in both households, it said.<\/p>\n
Sanderson started drinking and smoking marijuana at around age 12 to cope with problems, the document said. Cocaine followed soon after.<\/p>\n
Parole documents said he barged into his ex-girlfriend\u2019s home in July 2017 while she was with friends, punched a hole in the door of a bathroom while his two children were hiding in a bathtub and threw a cement block at a vehicle parked outside.<\/p>\n
He got into a fight a few days later at a store, threatening to kill an employee and burn down his parent\u2019s home, documents said.<\/p>\n
That November he threatened an accomplice into robbing a fast food restaurant by hitting him in the head with a firearm and stomping on his head. He then stood watch during the robbery.<\/p>\n
In April 2018, he stabbed two men with a fork while drinking and beat someone unconscious.<\/p>\n
He got into trouble twice while in prison for having contraband before he was let out in August 2021 on statutory release. But he got into trouble that year and had his release changed for failing to be honest with his parole supervisor about continuing what he acknowledged was a \u201crocky\u201d relationship with his common-law spouse.<\/p>\n
Myles Sanderson said his childhood \u201cnormalized substance abuse and violence.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he said he\u2019d \u201cstayed sober, found employment assisting an Elder, arranged for a therapist to deal with domestic violence and other issues.\u201d And in February, the board allowed him out of prison, while adding conditions to limit and monitor contact with his spouse and children.<\/p>\n
Parole documents also stated he should not enter into relationships \u2014 either intimate or non-sexual \u2014 with women unless he had prior written permission from his parole officer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is the Board\u2019s opinion that you will not present an undue risk to society if released on statutory release,\u201d parole documents said.<\/p>\n
But officials say he violated parole, and in May, a Crime Stoppers bulletin was issued for Sanderson, warning he was unlawfully at large.<\/p>\n
Sharna Sugarman, who was organizing a GoFundMe for the victims, questioned the parole board for releasing him and why Sanderson was still on the loose so many months after he was deemed \u201cunlawfully at large.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s just egregious to me,\u201d said Sugarman, a counselor who worked in the community in 2010 and 2011 and counted one of the stabbing victims \u2014 Gloria Lydia Burns \u2014 as a client. \u201cIf they claim that they\u2019ve been looking for him, well you weren\u2019t looking that hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mendicino, Canada\u2019s public safety minister, said he wants \u201cto know if any mistakes were made during the (parole) process.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has to be an independent review,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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