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Community members in the city of Winnipeg, Canada took to the streets Tuesday, banging drums and even breaking down a door in search of a woman who had been missing since May 22.
Family, friends and local community members – known as the Bear Clan street patrol – decided to act after 25-year-old Shanastene McLeod was missing for almost a week. McLeod was believed to be in a vulnerable position and staying with a man who was exploiting her, while police investigations were seemingly going nowhere.
“We don’t want to have to hold another vigil,” said Jackie Traverse, McLeod's aunt who was part of Tuesday's patrol. Her comments refer to an ongoing crisis in Canada, where hundreds of aboriginal women who have gone missing or been murdered across the country over the years.
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Many of the cases have also gone unsolved, in what experts have called an indication of the high level of institutional racism against Indigenous people in the country, particularly women and girls.
According to the most recent numbers by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, there have been at least 1,181 cases of murdered and missing Indigenous women in the country between 1980-2012, and the number continues to rise.
The problem is particularly pronounced in the central prairie province of Manitoba – where McLeod went missing. Indigenous women make up 49 percent of all murdered and missing persons cases in the province.
In the neighboring province of Saskatchewan, 55 percent of murdered and missing persons cases are Indigenous women and girls, and 28 percent in the western province of Alberta.
“[If] the police won't help us we need to help ourselves,” said one Winnipeg resident on his Facebook page, known as Blackwolf Hart, who helped with Tuesday's search.
The vigilante group marched through the neighborhood, and banged on indigenous drums and sang in front of an alleged drug house where they believed the girl was staying in an attempt to coax her out and into a welcoming environment, reported the Winnipeg Free Press.
At one point, a group of women kicked down the door of the house when they heard a woman sobbing inside, but nobody answered when they knocked. At this point, nearby police who had been monitoring the proceedings took over the situation.
“The Winnipeg Police followed us all through the hood as we searched for this missing girl,” said Hart on his Facebook page. “We kicked down a door and went to the drug shacks the people told us to go to. We found one girl and she made contact with her family.”
“Our work is not done yet we plan to do these walks once a week. We did this together and we did it right,” he added.
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