Racial profiling and wrongful detainment: Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond to intervene in BC Human Rights case against VPD
This story originally appeared on The Indo-Canadian Voice on June 16, 2021.
THE Union of BC Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) and Heiltsuk Nation announced on Wednesday that Dr. Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, former judge and Senior Associate Counsel with Woodward and Company, will be applying to intervene on behalf of UBCIC in an ongoing BC human rights case against the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) for the wrongful detainment of Maxwell Johnson and his granddaughter, outside a bank in Vancouver in December of 2019.
In making the announcement, the leaders also released security camera video of the detainment, which shows that after a bank employee called 911 in response to suspicions of fraud, Maxwell and his granddaughter – both members of the Heiltsuk Nation – were detained, brought out onto a busy downtown sidewalk, separated from one another, handcuffed, and searched: https://vimeo.com/548569834/d917c96bdf