Pierre's story: One brother's search for the truth

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Pierre George was overcome with emotion as he listened to the decision of a police tribunal in the case of Ontario Provincial Police officer Kenneth Deane. Pierre's brother Dudley was fatally shot by Deane in 1995 at Ipperwash Provincial Park during a land claim protest. Deane had been convicted of criminal negligence in Dudley's death, and now was being ordered to quit his job or be fired. Pierre was worried that some deal would be made that would allow the OPP officer to keep his job.

"I prepared myself for the worst case scenario," he told Windspeaker.

Immediately after the decision was handed down, a spokesman for the OPP Association, the officers' union, said the last appeal would be filed. Pierre George plans to be there to oppose any argument that the decision should be reversed.

"I'm going to mount my case against an appeal," he said. "I've already started doing that."

Sam George, another of Dudley's brothers, and other members of the family have filed a wrongful death civil action against Premier Mike Harris and other senior Ontario government and police officials for their part in Dudley's death. Pierre George does not support that lawsuit because he believes other tactics should have been employed to start at the bottom and work up the chain of responsibility. He has mounted a campaign to apply pressure in places he believes the lawsuit does not target.

George believes the reality must now be sinking in for Deane that he- and perhaps he alone- is going to pay the price for all the decisions that were made that led up to the killing. He sees an opportunity to break down the blue wall of silence that has prevented others from being held accountable for their actions that night.

"Deane's lawyer (Ian Rowland) also stated that if the appeal fails they're going to sue the OPP. He said it right on TV. I guess it would be a way of making them talk, too, eh?" George said.

Deane also faces a $300,000 legal bill he must repay to the officers' union. Originally the legal bill was paid for him, but that was found to be improper and Deane was ordered to repay the money. George wonders how the disgraced officer will be able to make good on that debt and whether rank file officers will resent the financial cost they've been saddled with if he can't repay it.

"I'm not sure if the rest of the regular guys on duty will end up biting the bullet over it or what. I've heard it from a couple of sources that a lot of cops are upset that their dues have been raised to pay for Deane's defense," he said.

In another in a series of ironic coincidences that have marked the six years since the tragic death of Dudley George, on the same day as the decision on Deane was handed down, Premier Harris apologized to the town of Walkerton for the government's role in the tainted water scandal. Seven people died and 2,300 of the town's residents became ill in May of 2000 when e coli bacteria contaminated the water supply.

The deaths of the non-Native people in Walkerton have, in the space of less than two years, prompted a public inquiry and an apology from the Ontario premier while the George family enters the seventh year of their wait for a similar response from government.

Pierre reacted angrily when questioned about the premier's relatively quick response to the Walkerton crisis.

He was also angered that the Walkerton inquiry was so open while all aspects of the Ipperwash investigation have been conducted behind closed doors. Harris' testimony regarding Walkerton was televised. But when the premier was examined by family lawyers in the Ipperwash case, it was conducted in private and no information of what was discussed has been made public.

"I've had people express that to me down here. More so, non-Native people. Expressing the idea of how come nobody gets to know what's going on there. That's the people's money and it's the people's right to know. When it's held behind closed doors . . . well you know what I mean aboutclosed doors. There's things going on that are not right as far as I'm concerned," George said.

George spends a great deal of his time sifting the bits of information that have surfaced over the last six years. He seized on one item that was revealed in One Dead Indian, the book about Ipperwash by Toronto Star reporter Peter Edwards. The reporter discovered that Kettle and Stoney Point Chief Tom Bressette received a warning call from a "friend in Queen's Park (the Ontario legislature)" that something was going to happen that fateful night. Bressette contacted a Sarnia radio station to broadcast a warning to the park's occupiers. George would like to know who that person was.

And he questioned what he sees as the inaction of Ontario's chief coroner, who he asked to call an inquest into his brother's death to see if police actions at the hospital that night may have prevented hospital staff from providing the best possible care.

"I've got to write him a letter. I haven't heard boo from him and that's since Sept. 6 last year. The least he could have done is let me know either 'we're going to call one or we're not.' People are not telling me nothing," George said. "Maybe it's time to go visit them again. Their motto and it's right in there, as soon as you go in the door: 'The dead can't speak for themselves. We have to speak for them.' Well, they aren't even speaking for their own live selves never mind speak for the dead."