Jury, coroner make recommendations in Saskatchewan mass killing inquest

By Kelly Geraldine Malone, The Canadian Press on January 31, 2024.

MELFORT, Sask. – The jury and coroner at an inquest into a mass stabbing on a Saskatchewan First Nation have made more than two dozen recommendations to improve corrections, policing and security to prevent future tragedies.

Jurors made 14 suggestions, including ways to better to locate offenders who are unlawfully at large and further funding and training for security on the James Smith Cree Nation.

They also said the First Nation should follow through on the process to establish its own police force.

The presiding coroner made 15 recommendations, including improvements for the RCMP warrant enforcement suppression team.

“This has been an extraordinarily difficult few weeks,” coroner Blaine Beaven said Wednesday.

He said he hopes “we will see positive change in society and prevent future similar deaths.”

Myles Sanderson was unlawfully at large when he killed 11 people and injured 17 others on the James Smith Cree Nation and in the nearby village of Weldon in 2022.

He died in police custody a few days later, and a separate inquest into his death is scheduled for February.

The six jurors began deliberating Tuesday morning after hearing 11 days of testimony about how the rampage unfolded, as well as the killer’s personal and prison history.

The inquest heard that Sanderson went to the First Nation to sell cocaine. In the days before the killings, he caused chaos there with his brother, Damien Sanderson.

Damien Sanderson was the first to be killed. Myles Sanderson then went door-to-door on the First Nation stabbing people.

An RCMP criminal profiler testified that some victims were targeted because Sanderson had a grievance against them, and others just got in the way of his mission to kill.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 31, 2024.

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