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Riders locked arms as issues of race persisted

As we say goodbye to 2017, the Leader-Post looks back on the stories that shaped Saskatchewan month-by-month.

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Often the events in the U.S. can have a profound impact on happenings in Canada. And even the two countries football leagues had that connection in September.

After President Donald Trump criticized NFL players for kneeling during the national anthem as a means of drawing attention to issues in the black community — including police brutality — players south of the border locked arms in a show of unity during the anthem.

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On Sept. 24, the Saskatchewan Roughriders followed suit before their game against the Calgary Stampeders. While the discussion around police treatment of minorities hasn’t been as loud in Canada as it has in the U.S., many of the team’s American players were drawn by thoughts of home.

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“Whether we’re down south in America or up here in Canada, we have a lot of American players on the team,” defensive back Jovon Johnson said. “It shows that we’re together no matter what the colour your skin is and that we believe in each other.

Saskatchewan Roughriders players link arms during the Canadian National Anthem during a CFL game held at Mosaic Stadium on September 24, 2017.
Saskatchewan Roughriders players link arms during the Canadian National Anthem during a CFL game held at Mosaic Stadium on September 24, 2017. Photo by Michael Bell /Regina Leader-Post

“We have to use our platform to show that it doesn’t matter what colour you are or where you come from, we’re all humans. If we can do that on this platform, it can trickle down to the other people in the world.”

The same day, the Riders’ organization was distancing itself from former club president Tom Shepherd who now runs the Friends of the Riders Touchdown Lottery. Before the game in an interview Shepherd referred to Trump as “my man” and agreed with the president’s stance that players who kneel shouldn’t get paid.

Two days later, Shepherd apologized.

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Race was also at the centre of a debate that sparked after Kamao Cappo, an Indigenous man, said he’d been accused of shoplifting and was forcibly removed from a Canadian Tire store in July. In September, police said no charges would be filed against the store employee, a decision Cappo at the time said “smacks of racism.”

The Ministry of Justice said there was not enough evidence to show the employee’s actions were more than an “honest defence of store property.”

Charges were filed, however, in one of the most bizarre scenes in Regina this year.

On Sept. 27, Regina police were following a man who they called a suspect in a stolen vehicle investigation when he decided to try to avoid them by climbing a tree. He spent the next five hours in that tree as officers tried to coax him down. Police even sprayed with a hose at one point, thinking he may have been trying to light his backpack on fire, but that only made the man climb higher in the tree.

Members of the Regina Police Service deal with a suspect held up in a tree on the 700 block of Garnet Street in Regina.
Members of the Regina Police Service deal with a suspect held up in a tree on the 700 block of Garnet Street in Regina. Photo by TROY FLEECE /Regina Leader-Post

He eventually came down after a woman in a nearby house offered him a taco. Once he came down, police let him have the promised food.

Sadly, September also saw one of the most tragic happenings of the year. On Sept. 13, six-year-old Cameron Mushanski was killed by a dog at his grandparents’ home in Riceton.

“We lost the light of our lives,” the boy’s grandfather Dan Trelnuk said a day later. 

Two dogs were euthanized, but no charges were ever filed.

“He was just the type of kid to walk into the room, he literally lit the room up,” Cameron’s aunt Cassandra-Marie Mushanski said. “He was everything, him and my son were born 12 hours apart. They were best friends.”

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