Building the Settler Colonial Order: Police (In)Actions in Response to Violence Against Indigenous Women in “Canada”

Abstract

In this article we focus on missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people in “Canada.” We theorize narratives that police employ to respond to this violence. Using a broad data sample of testimonies across “Canada,” this article contributes to understanding how police (in)actions make sense of, justify, and dismiss violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. We draw from 48 in-depth semi-structured interviews with Indigenous peoples in Toronto and other “Canadian” cities and 219 testimonies from the Canadian National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (NIMMIWG). The analysis finds that police repeatedly use similar frames (topics), styles (linguistic and behavioral strategies), and storylines (narratives) to respond to violence against Indigenous peoples. While framing Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people as deviants helps police make sense of and explain violence against them, the use of verbal and behavioral strategies (indifference, callousness, and lack of information) and storylines (“they were [insert pathologizing frame]” and “there’s nothing we can do”) allows police to dismiss and justify acts of violence. We argue that the frames, styles, and storylines employed by police perpetuate violence. Police (in)actions are fundamental to achieving settler colonialism’s ideological and material dimensions.

No one knows exactly how many missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA ¹ people are in what is now called Canada ² (Symes 2018). Estimates suggest that around 4,000 Indigenous women and girls and 600 Indigenous men and boys have gone missing or been murdered between 1956 and 2016 (Guyot 2022; The Guardian 2016). Several studies have outlined structural- and individual-level explanations—such as poverty, gender inequality, discrimination, and mental health issues—for why Indigenous peoples continue to disappear (Amnesty International 2004; Culhane 2003; García-Del Moral 2020; Human Rights Watch 2013; Lavell-Harvard and Brant 2016; Lucchesi 2019; Razack 2000; Scribe 2018; Simpson 2016; A. Smith and Ross 2004). Some research has highlighted the importance of state institutions’ narratives in justifying and perpetuating violence against Indigenous people (Dhillon 2015; O’Reilly and Fleming 2016; Razack 2000, 2015, 2020). However, few studies have theorized police role in violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people.

This article contributes to understanding how police make sense of, justify, and dismiss violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. Employing Bonilla-Silva’s (2001) analysis of the discursive construction of the racial order in the United States, we analyze the verbal interactions and communicative events between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and the police in the context of violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. Drawing from 48 in-depth semi-structured interviews with Indigenous people and 219 testimonies from the Canadian National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (NIMMIWG), our analysis finds that police repeatedly used similar frames (topics), styles (linguistic and behavioral strategies), and storylines (narratives) to understand, explain, and disregard this violence. While framing Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people as “runaways,” “drunks,” “drug addicts,” and “prostitutes” gave police the logic to explain violence against this group, police used verbal and behavioral strategies (indifference, callousness, and lack of information) and storylines (“she was [insert pathologizing frame]” and “there’s nothing we can do”) to dismiss and justify this violence. These frames, styles, and storylines emerge as repetitive police scripts across Canada. We argue that the emergence of repetitive police scripts indicates state participation in maintaining ideological (white supremacy) and material (land appropriation) dimensions of settler colonialism. Through their (in)actions—what they say, tell, and do or do not do—police affirm the disposability of Indigenous bodies, constraining the survival of Indigenous communities and consolidating settler colonialism (see Razack 2000 and Simpson 2016).

Literature Review

In 2004, Amnesty International, in collaboration with the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), released the first report assessing the issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) in “Canada.” One of the report’s main findings was that Indigenous women were overpoliced but underprotected (Amnesty International 2004). The police and legal system hypercriminalized Indigenous women. Police criminalization of Indigenous peoples is nothing new. Created in 1873, the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP), a predecessor of the now called Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), ³ controlled Indigenous peoples through law and order and heavily surveilled Indigenous communities to generate intelligence information on Indigenous organizing (Monaghan 2013). On the one hand, the NWMP worked to control and contain Indigenous peoples in reserves and prisons. On the other hand, it educated settlers and Indigenous peoples about their position in the settler colonial order. For instance, when Indigenous women were victims of violence at the hands of white settlers, the NWMP would rarely hold a white man accountable for his actions because Indigenous women were seen as dirty, lazy, promiscuous, and accustomed to violence (Carter 1997; Razack 2000, 2020).

Research has shown that the police frequently rationalize MMIWG cases by arguing that Indigenous women’s experiences of violence are a result of their risky life choices. Police describe Indigenous women (particularly those who live in urban areas) as “prostitutes,” “drug addicts,” and “drunks” (Dean 2015; Lucchesi 2019; O’Reilly and Fleming 2016; Razack 2000, 2020). These stereotypes facilitate the dismissal of violence against Indigenous women (Lucchesi 2019; Riel-Johns 2016). Violence against Indigenous women and the elimination of Indigenous women’s bodies are at the root of the settler colonial project (Byrd 2011; Dhillon 2015; Razack 2000, 2020; Simpson 2016). The settler Canadian government implemented policies, such as the 1876 Indian Act and residential schools, that targeted Indigenous women by restricting their ability to pass down Indigenous status and knowledge to their children and establishing dependency on men (A. B. Anderson, Kubik, and Hampton 2010; García-Del Moral 2020). Because Indigenous women are vital for the reproduction and transmission of indigenous ways of living and thinking (Dean 2015; Lavell-Harvard and Brant 2016; Simpson 2016; A. Smith and Ross 2004), their submission and elimination guaranteed the disappearance of Indigenous peoples and Indigeneity.

The elimination of Indigenous peoples warrants the acquisition and occupation of land by settlers, establishes settler identity as the norm, and justifies settlers’ rightful presence in Canada (Dhillon 2015; Glenn 2015; Razack 2000, 2020; Tuck and Yang 2018). While the social belief that Indigenous peoples were immoral, lazy, ignorant, and violent justified the appropriation of Indigenous lands, the framing of Indigenous women’s sexuality within a binary of decency and degeneracy, or idealization and hypersexualization, explained violence in Indigenous communities (Lucchesi 2019; Riel-Johns 2016). The stereotypes and discourses behind such policies as the Indian Act reveal the connections between the ideological and material dimensions of settler colonialism (Harris 2004).

Considering the police represent the main institution sustaining the settler state’s monopoly of violence, police (in)actions are fundamental to the continuity of settler colonialism. We use the term “(in)actions” because what police say, tell, and do holds pedagogical power that “enact[s] daily the racial hierarchy that structures the colonial” space (Razack 2015, 23); what police do not say, tell, and do are also actions that communicate the position that Indigenous lives occupy in the settler colonial order. Thus, analyzing how police verbally interact and behave when responding to violence against Indigenous peoples, particularly women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people, is crucial to understanding the mechanisms that perpetuate settler colonialism.

Previous researchers have discussed the responses of state institutions and the media when reporting and investigating MMIWG cases (for some examples, see Dhillon 2015; O’Reilly and Fleming 2016 and Razack 2000, 2012, 2015, 2020) We contribute to this literature by studying how police (in)actions make sense of, justify, and dismiss violence in Indigenous communities. We borrow from Bonilla-Silva (2001, 2014) to build a framework that systematizes the discourses of settler colonialism, which come alive through what is said, told, and done or not by the police. We have identified and systematized the patterns of response and justification that come up repeatedly in the interviews and testimonies analyzed. In this article, we highlight the importance of the police (as an institution) in extending and perpetuating the material and ideological dimensions of settler colonialism. Extending the scope of prior research, we use larger and geographically broader data.

While the analysis of Bonilla-Silva (2001) focuses on the use of color-blindness to explain and justify the dismissal of racial violence in the United States, here we show that white supremacy also plays a crucial role in the settler colonial order. Racialization and colonization are fundamental processes for white dominance (Byrd 2011; Flores 2016; King 2019). Indigenous peoples occupy a liminal space in racial and colonial relations because of their legal/political and racial identities (Brayboy 2005). For Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people, racial and gender identities intersect with Indigeneity, creating specific narratives that reproduce colonial and racial violence.

Data and Method

Using 48 in-depth semi-structured interviews with Indigenous peoples in the Ontario province and other regions in Canada and 219 testimonies from the Canadian NIMMIWG, we analyze the verbal and behavioral interactions between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and the police in the context of violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. We conducted 29 interviews as part of a project on Indigenous women’s and two-spirited people’s experiences of violence. The research project started with Jerry partnering with an Indigenous-led, Toronto-based community organization called No More Silence ⁴ in 2018. All interviews were conducted by both authors face-to-face in Toronto between November 2019 and March 2020. Interviewees were contacted through Indigenous organizations, which posted flyers about our research in their bulletin boards, and through snowball sampling. All individuals interested in participating contacted Jerry’s cell phone number. We did not contact anyone directly. We also conducted follow-up interviews in 2020 to study the pandemic’s impact on interviewees’ lives. However, we did not include those last interviews in our analysis.

The interviews lasted between 90 and 180 minutes. Interviewees’ ages varied between 20 and 60 years old. They were from different parts of Canada but were currently living in Toronto. In these interviews, the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women and interactions with the police emerged as resounding themes. All interviewees identified as Indigenous and agreed to let us and No More Silence use their testimonies for research purposes. A team of five undergraduate research assistants helped with the transcriptions and anonymization of interviews. The coding was done inductively using Dedoose—a collaborative research tool. We initially coded the first interview separately and created a list of common themes and codes. Those codes were then used to create a coding book that guided the coding of other interviews. We later expanded these codes as themes emerged in later interviews. Expanding our data are 19 interviews conducted between 2000 and 2018 by Audrey Huntley, the director of the organization No More Silence. These interviews were done to produce documentary films about missing and murdered Indigenous women. ⁵ They were coded inductively, and the themes found in them helped us prepare our own interview guide.

Enhancing the interviews are transcribed testimonies (n = 219) from the NIMMIWG’s web page. We downloaded them and created a new codebook in Dedoose based on the one used for the Toronto interviews. We used parent codes and subcodes to get more details about the identified themes. For instance, to analyze police responses to case reports, we created a parent code called “Details about the search” and subcodes called “Family lead the search,” “Police involvement,” and “Search started after a few days.” We also created a parent code called “Responses to and consequences of disappearance or murder,” which had subcodes such as “Feelings about authorities” and “Looking for justice.” Codes were not mutually exclusive, so some parts of the testimonies had subcodes assigned simultaneously. We gave research assistants the freedom to create new subcodes if the codes provided were insufficient. When coding, we were not intentionally looking to find specific discourses or narratives that described police actions. Once we finished coding and saw the distribution of information from interviews and testimonies, we found the police to be prominent in the data. For instance, of the 219 testimonies, 209 referred to negative relations with police regarding their management of the case.

Our data and analysis have some limitations. Whereas we conducted 29 of the interviews and could ensure the inclusion of questions concerning the police in them, the same cannot be said of other key data used in this study. More specifically, we could not control the issues addressed in the other interviews as well as the NIMMIWG testimonies. Razack (2015) has criticized inquiries and inquests of this sort as being only palliatives. They allow the Canadian government and society to pretend they are acting on this social issue and perpetuate stereotypes about Indigenous peoples. To a certain extent, we agree with Razack’s analysis. Little change has come from the inquiries and inquests related to violence against Indigenous women. However, we also believe these testimonies hold important political and healing power because they challenge the settler status quo and create collective memory.

Finally, we cannot finish this section without discussing the ethics of working with Indigenous peoples. Due to the long history of appropriation and misinterpretation of Indigenous knowledge in academic research (Kovach 2009; L. T. Smith 2012), doing research with Indigenous peoples must include a thoughtful reflection of positionality and ethical praxis. Therefore, we made multiple efforts to learn from and with Indigenous colleagues, friends, and communities as we conducted this study. Jerry, an associate professor of Purhepecha Indigenous descent who was born in Los Angeles, California, connected with Indigenous organizations and scholars, collaborating with them in organizing events, applying for grants, and volunteering his services as they needed them. Andrea, a mestiza doctoral candidate from Peru, took classes, participated and volunteered in Indigenous events and organizations, worked as a teaching assistant for Indigenous Studies classes, and connected with Indigenous colleagues. Our work with, by, and for Indigenous peoples in Turtle Island, Abya Ayala, and other territories inhabited by our Indigenous ancestors is a lifelong commitment.

As academic immigrants of color in Toronto who come from low-income families that have been torn by colonization, we also embody the contradictions of privilege and oppression in a territory to which we have not been invited. We are inheritors of the violence that sociology has perpetrated against Indigenous peoples and other marginalized communities to which we belong (Dean 2015). We—in the multiple roles we fulfill in our communities—are on the never-ending path to “confront our collective illegitimacy and determine how to live without participating in and sustaining the disappearance of Indigenous peoples” (Razack 2015, 27).

There is plenty of “damaged-centered” research that, with the intention of “helping” Indigenous peoples, has perpetuated the pathologizing stereotypes and callousness that we refer to in this article (Tuck 2009). Behind the words in this article, there are people who have suffered unimaginable losses and trauma and, at the same time, have outlived, resisted, and refused settler colonialism for centuries. Although there is suffering in the stories we will share, there is also survivance (Tuck 2009). With profound humility and awareness of who we are, what we are doing in Toronto, and where our political commitments are, we seek to contribute to understanding a problem that continues to affect Indigenous communities.

Results

In this article, we argue that through their (in)actions, police produce and reproduce common frames, styles, and storylines (as defined by Bonilla-Silva 2001) that make sense of, justify, and dismiss violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. We analyze the verbal interactions and communication (or behaviors) between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and the police in the context of violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. This violence is essential in reproducing the settler colonial order. The stories we analyze uncover the material and ideological mechanisms that lubricate the settler colonial order (Glover 2007).

Frames: Making Sense of Violence

Bonilla-Silva (2001) defines frames as topics that help make sense of and explain race relations. Frames are stereotypes or generalizations that rationalize why certain groups of people (racialized groups) are how they are without questioning the status quo. We found that police frequently used three frames to make sense of violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. Police assumed they were detached from their communities, broken, and “sick.”

According to interviews and testimonies, police referred to Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people as runaways. When relatives or friends reported their disappearance, police would suggest that leaving their community and not keeping in contact with family was normal behavior for these women:

And when we reported Denise missing, two officers came, and eventually the one officer said to the other one, “Oh, she’s probably downtown doing whatever.” (Testimony 559)

In interviews, participants addressed how police would dismiss the disappearance report by arguing that victims were likely “out partying or maybe they don’t want to be found” (Amelia). In both cases, the officers made sense of the situation by arguing that the disappearance had been a choice. This reasoning allowed police to not have any urgency to investigate the case. In some instances, police suggested a missing person’s report should be done no earlier than after 2 or 3 months of the disappearance. Framing the disappearance of Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people as a product of the victim’s detachment from their communities and families allows police to rationalize their inaction because it helps justify the likelihood of violence against Indigenous women. In other words, violent disappearance makes sense because of who these women are.

Another frame used by police officers to justify their inaction is the narrative of Indigenous women as drunks. Alcohol becomes the excuse for why a person disappeared or was murdered. According to Testimony 166, the coroner’s report stated that no investigation was required in the murder of their loved one because the person was “an intoxicated Native.” Drunkenness explains and minimizes the violence experienced by Indigenous women. On a regular basis, reports of disappearance and murder would not be taken seriously because police saw victims and survivors as people who put themselves in danger or who cannot be seen as real victims because they are “drunks” (Sadie). For police, it is these women’s “hard lifestyle that killed [them]” (Testimony 553). Therefore, nothing different could have happened than what fate prescribed.

Another relevant frame relates to sex work and drug use. Like the “drunk” frame, they reflect risky activities that make death an expected consequence:

These people came to my house, and I couldn’t sit still. I was so lost, and that one woman, it was like she laughed. She was laughing. Meanwhile, I was just all confused, and I looked at her and I said, “why are you laughing don’t you realize I said I think I lost my daughter . . .” [Another] officer that I spoke to, I asked him, I said: “I’m Cheyenne’s mother, I want to make sure this is Cheyenne.” I said: “how do you know it’s Cheyenne?” And he goes “well, they found her I.D.s on her” and I said “what happened” because I still didn’t want to believe it. And he says to me “did you know that she was a prostitute? And she was on drugs, and she jumped.” You know I live that every day. (Michelle)

Michelle’s narration about how the officer described her daughter’s passing shows the association of sex work, drug use, and death. Being Indigenous and a sex worker is, as Irma told us, “the lowest of the low,” and officers also employ that frame to explain and perpetuate violence against Indigenous women.

Framing Indigenous women as runaways, “drunks,” “prostitutes,” and “drug addicts” facilitates the justification of the murder and disappearance of Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. These women are seen as alone, broken, and sick. Therefore, their disappearance and death seem like a natural consequence of who they are, something they could not avoid. These frames help police understand and explain to themselves and others that the disappearance of these women is inevitable and, to an extent, desirable.

Styles: Dismissing Violence

For Bonilla-Silva (2001), styles, or what he also called race talk, are the rhetorical and linguistic strategies people use to state their point of view about social relations. Although we agree with Bonilla-Silva that these strategies are part of the discursive and ideological arsenal that builds the racist social order, we add a twist to his definition. We argue that the social order is also built through verbal interactions and behaviors. What is said or not said, done or not done, also states, transmits, and establishes ideas. Police narratives articulate settler colonial views about the value and disposability of Indigenous bodies. Through three strategies (open indifference, callousness, and lack of information), the police dismiss and ensure violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people.

One of the main styles police employed when responding to reports of disappearance was indifference. Police acted as if they did not care. Police were either not willing to use the available resources to start an investigation or, when investigating, ignored information given by relatives and friends of the victim. Several testimonies narrated how the police did not want to file a missing person’s report or attend to people’s information and concerns:

. . . just wish the police could’ve done more. I wish they could’ve listened to me, you know, because I told them about, “How come she only had one shoe on? How come you didn’t go find out where the other shoe was?” (Testimony 444a)

Due to the indifference and callousness of the police, relatives and friends felt like they themselves had to do the necessary police work, search for evidence, and put pressure on police to pursue an investigation:

I phoned back again, assuming that there would be some sort of proactive action. And, I said, “Okay, I have a file number. This is who I am. I have a file number. I want to know what happens next?” He says, “Now we wait for a body.” And, I said, “You’re kidding me. Like, you’re kidding me.” And, he said, “No, and now we wait for a body. If a body shows up, we have somebody to,” you know, “we have a name. . . .” (Testimony 86)

Indigenous peoples believe that police are generally indifferent to violence against women in their communities including those who are victims of intimate partner violence. Similar to their treatment of missing persons’ reports, police, according to the interviewee Laura, show callousness when they dismiss concerns about violence against Indigenous women such as herself:

There was even one time I was on the streets, he [partner at that time] came in, he was choking me as I’m like screaming, kicking, trying to scream. And these two guys, they were walking, and they were like, “Hey, is she okay? Like, what’s wrong?” . . . and I’m just trying to get their attention more and he’s telling them, “Oh, she’s just too drunk, and I’m just trying to help her off the street.” . . . And the police finally showed up and they said, “Oh, we’ll just take him to a friend. He won’t bother you tonight.” And he was on parole, no probation, on parole. If they would’ve charged him, they would’ve put him in jail. . . . But they didn’t want to, because he [the officer] goes, “Oh, well, he’s almost off his parole. He only gets three to six months to go, you know, we’ll just drive him home,” as I’m all busted, like bruises, water’s gushing, you know, fat lip, black eye, you know. And they didn’t even call an ambulance for me. (Laura)

Alive or dead, police respond to the threat or act of violence against Indigenous women in similar fashion: callous and indifferent. They also have little regard for the impression given by their dismissive attitude.

Police (in)actions have long-term physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual effects on people:

Yeah, the waste of time that they put me through. You know, they had me jumping through hoops, and it was just, like, entertainment. They instilled fear in me. They character-assassinated me. The dissociation of credibility within my community. I experienced with (indiscernible) the doubt, shame. Yeah, just, those were all the resultant factors of looking for your cousin’s missing information. (Testimony 504)

People felt angry, fearful, shamed, abandoned, and abused. Police made them feel like she wasn’t [their loved ones weren’t] worth to go looking for her [them]. (Testimony 429)

Police also provide incongruent or incomplete information and hid new facts about cases. On many occasions, the police would refuse to let family members see where their loved ones had died or disclose critical information about where and how they died:

I don’t know if it’s just because of the years that have gone by, but there isn’t a missing-person report. . . . I just found that out. [S.] let me know that a couple weeks ago. So, I’ve come forward. And a little annoyed, and hurt, because I thought some of these things have already been done. Like, I was told that there was a Canada-wide search done. I was told that there was a North American search. (Testimony 246)

Police also fail to communicate with friends and family of victims. Some had not even known that their relative’s case had still been open:

I thought her case was dropped, I thought her case was closed, and maybe about five years later I found out that one of my friend’s mom was being interviewed by the cops, by the RCMP in Nain, because she had a relationship with my sister’s boyfriend; and she was getting interviewed by the cops and she told me that her case was still open. (Josephine)

Both accounts show how relatives are unaware of basic information about cases. In the situation of Josephine, police even decided to interview people close to the family without consulting with the actual family. It is as if the family did not exist or deserve to be informed. Police not communicating with family is telling; it implies that there is an underlying assumption that they—in this case the sister of the missing Indigenous person Josephine—did not care. For this reason, it is assumed that no one deserved to know whether she or her murderer was found.

The lack of communication from the police keeps people in a constant state of uncertainty as it denies Indigenous peoples’ justice or recognition. Friends and family seldom receive an opportunity for closure because police hardly ever solve cases. Law enforcement often does not find the disappeared person’s body; if they did, they would rarely arrest the murderer. Because many of these cases are never solved, the opportunity for closure is denied for loved ones:

I want closure, I want closure to say this is the report by the police, city police at the time, and this is what we did. To know that they investigated it, to know that they just didn’t write it down and say missing person, drunk missing person. To know that they did something at that time. (Testimony 522)

Lack of closure affects the emotional and physical well-being of those who outlive the disappeared or murdered. According to Jelin (2003, 140), “the absence of bodies, [justice], and the uncertainty of death make mourning almost impossible,” and mourning is crucial for the mind, body, and spirit to heal. The verbal and behavioral strategies of the police ensure that Indigenous peoples, especially women, understand their low position in the settler colonial order as they articulate the unworthiness and ungrievability of Indigenous women’s bodies (K. Anderson, Campbell, and Belcourt 2018; Byrd 2011; Dean 2015; Razack 2000, 2020).

Storylines: Justifying Violence

Storylines or narratives are words, phrases, and ideas people believe to justify and maintain racial privilege (Bonilla-Silva 2001). Storylines determine how people act and behave toward a particular group. In our analysis, we found that police employed two specific narratives: “She was [a] (insert pathologizing stereotype)” and “There’s nothing we could do.” These storylines justify and maintain violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people.

We call the first storyline the pathologizing narrative. Police repeatedly employed racist, gendered, and classist stereotypes to respond to and justify violence against Indigenous women:

So, if the RCMP feel that she was a runaway then you’re probably going to feel that throughout the whole community. So, I feel that the RCMP, you know, really should have taken it more seriously and—and followed up and, like, listened to the family. (Testimony 573)

As discussed earlier, Indigenous women are frequently labeled as “runaways,” “drunks,” “prostitutes,” and “drug addicts.” The use of these stereotypes (or frames) creates a pathologizing narrative. The frames might alter, but the storyline remains.

The pathologizing narrative has deadly consequences. It informs how police respond little to violence as it then facilitates the perpetuation of violence:

. . . my sister fell victim to uh racial profiling . . . she was in the process of having a stroke and they mistook her because they assume that she was native, and she was drunk. . . . So, they processed her as a drunken native, chucked her in the drunk tank and they monitored her for 11 hours. Normally they monitor them for 4 hours 6 hours and then they kick them out, but they monitored her for 11 hours and they didn’t bother to check on her and when they realized something was wrong it was too late, my sister was already lying dead. (George)

Police also used pejorative terms like “squaw” and “wagon burner” when interacting with Indigenous women. In North America, “squaw” and “wagon burner” are two disparaging terms used by colonizers and settlers to refer to Indigenous women (“squaw”) and Indigenous peoples in general (“wagon burner”). Indicating a gendered racialized violence, “squaw” has violent sexualized connotations to it because it hypersexualizes Indigenous women and associates them with sex work.

The historical intersections of race, class, and gender mark Indigenous women’s experiences of violence (García-Del Moral 2018; Mack and Na’puti 2019). For generations, Indigenous women have been erroneously depicted as promiscuous and degenerates (Dean 2015; O’Reilly and Fleming 2016). Such gendered and racialized pathologizing tropes adversely affect police behavior as they hamper state response and reduce the willingness of the police to address violence (O’Reilly and Fleming 2016; Pamplona and Flores 2019). Pathologizing narratives furthermore result in the criminalization of Indigenous women (Patrick 2016) and the maintenance of violence against them.

The second storyline is related to the indifference and callousness styles presented earlier. Police frequently respond to those looking for their loved ones with the attitude that “there’s nothing we can do”:

. . . the actual investigations are not even taking place when you look at the evidence involved, and people are saying: “Oh, you know, they died of alcohol poisoning in their sleep.” When the actual physical evidence within a home definitely points to physical struggle. There’s like biological evidence there. And people are having those experiences of being told: “Sorry, there’s nothing we can do for you.” (Barbara)

The “there’s nothing we can do” narrative comes in different forms: “They couldn’t do anything about the investigation” (Josephine) or “I can’t help you” and “it’s not me, and good luck” (Barbara). However, what these forms of the same narrative have in common is the justification of police (in)action.

When asked if they received help from police, participants, whether speaking in testimonies or interviews, mostly said no. Participants felt that the police could not help and were unwilling to do so. On many occasions, the “there’s nothing we can do” storyline was accompanied by negligent police actions, such as ignoring evidence that people thought was essential and dismissing the possibility that their loved ones disappeared or had been murdered. Police were deliberate about their inability and unwillingness to help. They pretended that responding to violence against Indigenous women was not their work, thereby perpetuating it through their inaction.

Both storylines justify and maintain violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people, and thus sustain settler colonialism. Whereas the pathologizing narrative allows police to position themselves as superior in power and humanity against Indigenous women (who seem to not be recognized as equally human), the “there’s nothing we can do” storyline helps police justify their (in)actions. As illustrated by the use of these storylines, police are not just communicating their unwillingness to help but also affirming that Indigenous peoples are impossible to help (Razack 2015). They cannot help what is already lost. Thus, they can justify and maintain the violence at the basis of settler privilege.

Finally, we cannot end this section without acknowledging that some of these frames, styles, and storylines also appear when looking at violence against Indigenous men. For instance, Indigenous men and boys are also stereotyped as “drunks” and “drug addicts.” However, frames such as “runaways” and “prostitutes” carry a different moral connotation. These frames respond to gender expectations. Furthermore, as other authors have argued before, the implications of these frames, styles, and storylines are different (Razack 2020).

Conclusion

Building on previous research showing the role state institutions (e.g., courts or police) and the media have played in perpetuating violence against Indigenous peoples, our goal was to theorize about the verbal and behavioral (in)actions of the police when responding to violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. Drawing on data from 48 in-depth semi-structured interviews with Indigenous peoples in Toronto and other cities in Canada and 219 testimonies from the Canadian NIMMIWG, we found that police employed similar frames, styles, and storylines to make sense of, dismiss, and justify violence. Given these findings, we argue that these frames, styles, and storylines are vital to producing and reproducing settler colonialism’s material and ideological dimensions.

Borrowing from Bonilla-Silva’s (2001) framework, we found that the police used four main frames to make sense of violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. They frequently described Indigenous women and girls as “runaways,” “drunks,” “prostitutes,” and “drug addicts.” These frames allowed the police to explain to themselves and others that violence against Indigenous women is inevitable, a natural consequence of these women’s life choices. Furthermore, police employed three main styles (indifference, callousness, and lack of information) to dismiss violence. These styles or strategies facilitated the communication of the low position that Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people occupied in the settler colonial order. Their bodies and lives are seen as insignificant. Finally, police employ two main storylines to justify and maintain violence. The pathologizing narrative and “there’s nothing we can do” narrative act as justifications for Indigenous women’s death, thus maintaining settler privilege.

Our findings are consistent with prior research. Just like Razack (2000, 2020), we also find that common verbal interactions and behaviors by state agents convey to Indigenous peoples that Indigenous women’s bodies do not matter. Their bodies are inhuman, disposable, and ungrievable (Dhillon 2015; Razack 2000, 2020; Simpson 2016). Because police have the power to recognize violence and produce the symbolic rules that define harm and how to respond to it (Hume 2009), the frames, styles, and storylines employed by the police have profound consequences on how much society cares about violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people.

Indigenous women’s experiences of violence are rarely understood as a consequence of centuries of oppression by settler colonialism. Their deaths are framed as the result of their vulnerability, risky behaviors, and inability to adjust to settler society (Razack 2015, 2020), while state institutions’ responsibility is ignored (García-Del Moral 2018). As Pamela Palmater (2016) has stated, violence against Indigenous women is so pervasive that police even perpetuate it.

Police frames, styles, and storylines explain, dismiss, and justify forms of violence that are central to settler colonialism’s goal of dispossessing and erasing Indigenous peoples to appropriate and exploit Indigenous land (Harris 2004). Indigenous women’s bodies are the most important obstacle to achieve that goal. Their bodies threaten the rightful claim of white settlers to “Canadian” territory (Razack 2020; A. Smith and Ross 2004). Without violence against Indigenous women, the colonial project would have never been realized and sustained (Green 2017; A. Smith and Ross 2004). Police use of the frames, styles, and storylines we identified in our study acts as mechanisms that perpetuate settler colonialism.

Like all research, this study has its limitations. First, we studied frames, styles, and storylines by analyzing testimonies and narratives of those who have interacted with police. Thus, it is impossible to guarantee that police officers specifically said what people reported. Further studies could improve our understanding of the material and ideological mechanisms that sustain settler colonialism by interviewing police officers and analyzing police documents that are part of missing and murdered Indigenous women’s cases.

Second, we have focused on people’s experiences in “Canada.” However, settler colonialism and other forms of colonialism are pervasive in other countries. Thus, we think further studies comparing frames, styles, and storylines in different contexts and across different marginalized groups would contribute to our understanding of settler colonialism. Some efforts have already been made to compare experiences across territories and groups of people (A. B. Anderson, Kubik, and Hampton 2010; Jimenez-Estrada et al. 2020; King 2019; Romero and De Marinis 2020), but more comparative research is necessary. For instance, prior research has argued that the Canadian police exert disproportionate control on Black and Indigenous peoples and use lethal violence to maintain the racial, settler colonial order (Maynard 2017; Wortley and Owusu-Bempah 2009, 2011a, 2011b). More research that goes beyond the ethnic/racial division is necessary.

Despite its limitations, our study has important implications for future research and policy. First, we expand Bonilla-Silva’s theorization beyond the racial order. Although similar stereotypes, strategies, and narratives can be found when looking at police responses to violence against Indigenous peoples (see Razack 2015), for Indigenous women, gender, ethnic, and racial violences are simultaneously at play. Their multiple identities are inseparable, and their experiences of oppression are what has made the settler colonial order possible.

Second, we have expanded the theorization of settler colonialism’s material and ideological dimensions and the centrality that police discourses have in making sense of, dismissing, and justifying the violence that are at the core of the colonial project. Our study contributes to the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and the NIMMIWG in uncovering the mechanisms by which settler colonial violence occurs and the consequences it has on Indigenous communities.

Third, in an era of heightened scrutiny of police violence, the study shows the need to look for alternatives to the police for victim state support. The Canadian police are not a haven for Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. On the contrary, they continue to perpetuate violence against them. Although the Calls for Justice of the NIMMIWG proposes guaranteeing police services to rural and isolated Indigenous communities, decolonial education and training for officers, and creating a civilian police oversight board (Symes 2018), we firmly believe that investing in alternatives to settler policing, security, and criminal justice is fundamental for reconciliation. Abolishing settler colonial police and policing is the main way to address centuries of colonial violence.