#who gave these two unsupervised genius licenses

[aunhinged]

Sherlock and House crossover AU

Sherlock: I switched John’s phone language to Icelandic. He’s been trying to translate texts with Google for the last two hours.

House: I changed Wilson’s ringtone to the sound of a cardiac monitor flatlining. He nearly had a heart attack.

Sherlock: Efficient and thematic.

House: I aim to please.

John (to Wilson): We could just... ignore them?

Wilson: Ignoring them only makes them try harder.

[queenbeyondthewalll]

In Memory of Tina Fontaine

Over three years ago, in August of 2014, a fifteen year old Indigenous girl named Tina Fontaine disappeared from the hotel room Child and Family Services (CFS, the Canadian version of the American Child Protective Services, or CPS) had placed her in. She was originally from the Sagkeeng First Nation, a Reserve in Manitoba, not that far from Winnipeg, where I live. Tina had been through tragedy; in 2011, when she was twelve, her father Eugene was diagnosed with cancer and given four months to live. He didn’t even get that- one day, he got in an argument with two supposed friends (Nicholas Abraham and Jonathan Starr) and a fight started. The two men beat Eugene Fontaine repeatedly, for hours, and then dragged him outside to a shed and left him tied up, with no shirt on a cold fall night. He died, cold and beaten. It affected Tina deeply, as you can imagine. According to her family, she was unable to cope and began drifting away.

One of many tragedies in this whole thing are the killers; Nicholas Abraham was raised by violent alcoholics, experienced abuse from young childhood, ended up in CFS care for most of his life after both his parents went to prison when he was five. Jonathan Starr is even worse: he also ended up in CFS care, and was subjected to, according to his lawyer, “horrific physical and sexual abuse”. To top it off, he had rather severe Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, to the point where, mentally, he had the mental capacity of about a ten year old. I share this information not to excuse their actions, but to paint a picture of the kind of cycles of abuse, addiction, and violence Indigenous people go through.

Tina’s mother, Valentina Duck, lived in Winnipeg (Tina had mainly been raised by her great-aunt, Thelma Favel), and in June of 2014, Tina and her sister Sarah traveled to Winnipeg to visit their mother. They were meant to stay for a week, but Sarah almost immediately left to go back home. Thelma gave Tina a long-distance call card in case she wanted to leave earlier. Tina didn’t call, but she did run away, and during the next few weeks, Tina met both Cody Mason, an eighteen year old she began dating and who offered her a place to stay- his father’s house- where she did stay for about two weeks, and the man recently ruled not guilty in her death, fifty year old Raymond Cormier.

Tina’s involvement with authorities was when her great-aunt Thelma Favel called CFS on July 17th, worried because she hadn’t heard from Tina in weeks. CFS picked her up and placed her in the Capri Motel, where she left almost immediately. This might be a good time to say that since Tina, the practice of placing children in CFS in hotels and motels has since been banned in Manitoba, but before that it was very common. This led to many children and teenagers- especially those who had just been apprehended, many of whom didn’t feel they were abused or in danger, whether that’s true or not- being unsupervised and, as you may expect, many runaways. These were children and teenagers who were predominately already at the highest risk of going missing, being murdered, or being exploited. The reason they put kids in hotels- which other provinces still do- is because they simply apprehend too many kids to have places in foster or group homes for them all. I will say I know for a fact some people who are in various types of social work have called what’s been going on with the apprehended children, especially since the Phoenix Sinclair case (that is a whole other story and honestly too sad for me to do the amount of research I’m doing on this one), the ‘new residential school system’ or a ‘second sixties scoop’. But I digress.

Tina had been reported missing on July 18th, after she went AWOL from the motel. She was picked up by a social worker and taken to the Ndinawe group home on July 23rd. On July 26th, she missed the 10:30pm curfew and was reported missing just after midnight, although she showed up again at Ndinawe a few hours later. Around this time, Tina wanted to go home, according to a family friend. He and his girlfriend had recently had a baby, and were going to Sagkeeng for a visit. Tina wanted to catch a ride with them, but by the time she messaged them on July 28th, they had already left.

She missed curfew at Ndinawe again on July 30th, and was reported missing on July 31st, although her aunt would later say she had stayed with her from August 1st to 3rd. On August 5th, Tina phoned her CFS worker and was picked up by the police and CFS. August 6th, her boyfriend, Mason, flew back to his home community, St. Theresa Point First Nation, a reserve in Northern Manitoba. Upset, Tina rode a bike to the place Cormier was with two other people she knew, Sarah Holland and Tyrell Morrison. Some time that evening, Cormier borrowed the bike Tina had to go buy weed. He apparently traded the bike for two grams, which Cormier claims is what she and him argued about that night, and the reason Tina left around 10pm. Other witnesses, however, testified she left because Cormier was being inappropriate. They also told the court Tina had threatened to call the cops about the truck full of tools Cormier had stolen that day.

She did, in fact, call 911 about the truck shortly after she left. On the call, which you can hear here, Tina tells the 911 operator her friend Sebastian- the name Cormier had been going by that summer- had stolen a truck. As this was not an emergency, the 911 operator told her she needed to call the police directly, giving her the number and instructions on talking to a person. As she was on a payphone, and may not have had the change needed to call a non-emergency number, it seems like she didn’t. Robert Sango (a man who, in full disclosure, was on parole and living at a half-way house, but doesn’t seem to have any reason to lie) testified that he was near the payphone smoking when she used it, and after she hung up asked for a smoke and sat with him. He testified that Tina told him she had been at a friend’s house, but left because an older man was making moves on her. She said she was scared someone was following her and that she had no place to go. He said when she left, she headed in the direction of “a friend’s house”.

On August 8th, around 5am, police pulled over a truck that was “driving suspiciously”. Inside were the driver, a man with a suspended license who was taken into custody, and Tina Fontaine. The man later told court he had picked her up off the street after driving around, looking for a girl to “hang out with”. It doesn’t take a genius to translate that into ‘pay for sex’. Tina gave police two fake names before giving her real one, afraid she was in trouble. One of the cops told his partner, a new recruit, to search her name. The new recruit testified he saw that she had been a missing person previously, but didn’t see a current missing persons alert on her name, although at that time she definitely was. Tina didn’t appear to be in any distress, and as the new recruit had failed to notice the missing persons alert, they let her go.

A few hours later, security footage in a parkade show Tina taking shelter from the rain, lying down between two parked cars, and falling asleep. Half an hour later, around 10am, two people walking through the parkade saw Tina and went to alert security. When the security guard was unable to wake Tina, she called 911. Paramedics showed up around 10.30am and were able to wake her, although she seemed disoriented and was “struggling with knowing where she was and who she was”, according to the security guard, who also said she had what looked like either mosquito bites or cigarette burns on her legs which looked “awful” (having lived in Winnipeg my entire life, I would not be surprised in the slightest in there were mosquito bites, but this is speculation), and a blister on her lip. Paramedics took her to the Children’s Hospital, who contacted CFS. She was looked over by a doctor, who took blood and urine samples. The doctor was worried Tina was being sexually exploited, but Tina refused a physical exam and wouldn’t answer questions. The doctor testified “I tried to counsel her, get her to open up to me. I told her about the dangers she could be in. I tried to urge her not to run away from CFS.” Not long after that, CFS worker Kimberly Chute showed up and stayed with Tina until she was discharged. 

Kimberly took Tina to McDonalds to get something to eat after they left the hospital in an effort to get Tina to open up, something she says she does with many kids in her care. Tina did open up some, telling Kimberly she had lost her bike, and that she had been hanging out with a much older guy she called by the name Cormier had been using, ‘Sebastian’, who she said used meth, who was going to get her a new bike. Kimberly tried not to make a big deal about it in an effort not to scare Tina off and get her to open up some more, and told her that CFS could help her get a new bike. That evening, Kimberly dropped Tina off at a Best Western hotel in downtown Winnipeg, where CFS had placed her. Tina told her she was planning on meeting some friends at Portage Place mall, a place where drugs commonly dealt and children and teenagers are known to be exploited. Kimberly tried to convince Tina to stay at the hotel, but there was no way for her to physically prevent her from leaving, and turned her over to a respite worker, Ngozi Ikeh, who also tried to convince Tina to stay at the hotel, but was also unable to convince her. Tina left soon afterwards. She was reported missing for the fifth and final time after she hadn’t returned by midnight on August 9th. Eight days later, on August 17th, she was found dead in the Red River, wrapped in garbage bags and a duvet cover, weighed down with rocks. She is believed to have died August 10th, the day after she was reported missing.

The evidence that Cormier killed her or was even just involved somehow, whether during or after the fact, are these: to start off with, he knew her. He was a fifty year old man hanging out with a fifteen year old, who Mason says gave them a place to sleep despite being homeless himself. Mason also testified that Cormier gave him and Tina pills- gabapenton, an increasingly common drug on the streets that’s prescribed generally for nerve pain and epilepsy. Cormier had been staying in a tent in Ida Beardy’s backyard that summer, and she testified that he had a lot of blankets (unsurprisingly, for a homeless person who lives in a city where there’s often snow six months a year and the temperature drops to -40) and both she and her daughter testified that one of these blankets, a duvet cover which he used to air out on her fence, matched the one Tina’s body was found wrapped in. The duvet cover was identified as one only sold at Costco, and furthermore one of only 100 sold in Winnipeg. Ida Beardy also says she told him to leave after he smashed her BBQ after his bike was stolen, demonstrating anger problems and violent tendencies. Although no one reported this to the police, and is not on the record of any kind, at least one woman had been attacked by him before. He is recorded saying he wanted to sleep with Tina, and got angry when he found out she was only fifteen. We know Tina and him fought a few days before her death, and according to the testimony of Robert Sango, Tina had left when Cormier made moves on her and afterwards, even away from him, felt afraid and thought someone was following her.

And, of course, we have the recording of him saying Tina “got killed because we, I, found out she was fifteen”, which along with his anger about her age, his concern about people thinking he was a pedophile, and his pursuit of her, really all add up to him admitting he killed her.

But between the river washing any DNA evidence away, the lack of eyewitnesses to the murder itself, and the relentless idea that because Tina- a fifteen year old girl- might have involved in sex work, did some drugs, and was a runaway, somehow that means her death was just what is to be expected, Cormier was pronounced not guilty.

Here’s the thing: it’s not just that Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people are more likely to be killed or go missing. It’s not just the Highway of Tears, or the fact that a volunteer group was started called ‘Drag the Red’ to do exactly that: these volunteer civilians- trained by volunteer forensic anthropologists and volunteer archaeologists- search the banks of the Red River and drag fish hooks down the bottom of the muddy water Winnipeg takes it’s name from, hoping to find bodies and/or evidence- every single person who lives here knowing there are bodies down in the zero visibility water (since the group has started dragging the Red, several bodies have been found, and while it’s not by them, they note that several times the day before the body was found they had been on the river and caught a snag on something heavy. They believe they’re dislodging bodies). It’s not teenagers writing letters asking to be buried in the red dress that has become a symbol for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women if they were to be murdered. It’s not even the systematic, generational abuse and trauma Indigenous peoples have experienced in Canada for generations upon generations. Being forced onto Reserves, having their children stolen, active and passive genocide. It’s not just the huge, blaring things.

It’s the teachers I had in elementary school that called their students ‘stupid Indi**s’ to their faces. It’s my best friend in grade six not coming back from lunch, being missing all afternoon, and not a single adult questioning where she was- I learned the next day she was fine, she had found a dog running around and went along with the dog instead of going to school, meaning an eleven year old girl at a high statistical danger of becoming another name on the list of MMIW was wandering around busy streets for hours and not a single adult that was supposed to be looking after her gave a damn. It’s the flasher that stalked two of my Metis friends to school and back home for weeks when we were nine that, again, no adult thought to do anything about. It’s another girl I was friends with when I was seven who came to school with broken fingers, told the teacher her brother had slammed her hand in a door repeatedly, and was sent home (BACK TO HER BROTHER) because her hand was too busted to hold a pencil. It’s the numerous teachers who consistently put the Indigenous kids in lower level spelling and the non-Indigenous appearing kids in high level spelling, meaning while kids who could spell circles around me were being assumed to be uneducated by default and weren’t permitted to learn more than what they already knew, kids (like me) who couldn’t spell shit were assumed to be advanced.

It’s the crowdsourced taxi services for Indigenous women in Winnipeg because taxis are dangerous as fuck for women to get in here. It’s the Bear Clan Patrol, another group of volunteer civilians who act as a sort of safety patrol for the most dangerous parts of Winnipeg. It’s that the majority of Indigenous children from reservations only have two choices, when it comes to high school- drop out, or go to the city to attend school (imagine yourself, about to start high school; imagine any ninth graders you know, and imagine them leaving home for a much larger city all alone. Some have family to stay with. Some don’t). It’s that the Manitoba Museum had the body of an Inuit man displayed until someone- I believe in the 70s, or possibly the 80s- looked at that and realized it was fucked up to have a dead guy there’s no proof wanted to be an exhibit in a museum displayed like he was one and they gave him back to his family. I don’t know who the person to realize it was fucked up was. Maybe they worked at the museum. Maybe the family themselves did. It’s that Residential Schools- the schools opened with the express purpose to ‘breed out the Ind**n’ by forcibly removing children from their culture and beating them if they tried to speak their languages or practice their faiths or traditions- were open during my life time. It’s that Indigenous children in foster care sometimes get their hair forcibly cut, something very much against many Tribe’s culture and beliefs. It’s the quiet deaths of babies, children, and teenagers in CFS care. It’s the nine year olds hanging themselves, the ten year olds starting gangs for safety and the money to support families that don’t have an adult checked in enough to provide either. It’s the teenage girl that got kicked off a bus for wearing a ‘Got Land?’ shirt. It’s the addiction, and mental illness, and homelessness, and lack of support. It’s the bruises I’ve seen from police brutality. It’s the mural made for the 150th Canada Day painted over in the night with words of resistance which were immediately covered. It’s the statues of white men who led genocide being allowed, but Louis Riel still being considered a traitor by the Canadian government. It’s the small, insidious things that creep in and don’t let go, until your culture is gone, your children are gone, your land and tradition and religion and people are gone.

We don’t know the true number of MMIWG since 1980, but recent studies by the RCMP show over a thousand cases of Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirited people going missing or their bodies being found murdered.

Indigenous men make up about 3% of Canada’s population, but 25% of imprisoned men in Canada are Indigenous. 

Roughly 170 Indigenous communities do not have access to clean water. Many only have running water in the too short summer. Some don’t have running water at all.

Indigenous children under fourteen make up over 52% of those in CFS care in Canada. In Manitoba alone, a province with 1.3 million people- 17% of which are Indigenous- Indigenous children make up 90% of the 10,700 in CFS care.

Indigenous people are almost six times more likely to get tuberculosis than other Canadians, and in Nunavut, they are THIRTY-EIGHT TIMES MORE LIKELY.

I don’t know what else to say. I don’t know what more one can say to convince someone there’s a problem, a deep, embedded problem, dug into the stolen land we sit on. I don’t know what to suggest to fix these problems. Fix the train bridge to Northern Manitoba, help build the Freedom Road Shoal Lake 40 is building in an attempt to have access to clean water, since the water diverted for them makes you sick, put in place better supports for Indigenous families when CFS gets involved, force the police to care. There isn’t an easy fix. Not for any of it, really, without a lot of money and a huge shift in ingrained racism. But I think we could start off by actually giving justice to the people who abuse, assault, and kill Indigenous people, Indigenous children.