The Gazette
Friday, August 08, 2008
It happens several times a week: Drivers chased by police speed into what they think is the safe haven of Kahnawake, the big Mohawk reserve just south of Montreal.
Often they're trying to beat a traffic violation. Losing themselves in the labyrinthian territory, where the streets have no names and there are plenty of places to hide, they try to evade justice.
Whatever the infraction - rolling through a stop sign, driving dangerously, driving drunk - to these fugitives Kahnawake represents immunity from being fined or getting their licence suspended or being charged with a crime.
Even though the reserve has its own police force, the Peacekeepers, the impression some people have is that once they're inside Kahnawake lines, they're home free.
Now the community wants to change that perception.
Tragically, it's taken the death of one of their own - a teenage boy who was struck and killed last Wednesday night by an SUV whose driver was fleeing police from outside the reserve - to spur them to action.
Tylor Glasgow, 15, was riding his bike a block away from his family's house in Kahnawake's Old Schoolhouse district when he was hit.
The driver, a 25-year-old Kahnawake man, had been chased there by Roussillon police after he ran a red light on Highway 132.
Peacekeepers arrested the suspect at the scene; he appeared in court Friday on an outstanding warrant but was not charged in the boy's death. Instead, he was released and issued a promise to appear in court to answer to an eventual charge, most likely next week.
The suspect's name has not been released to the news media.
"We lost a loved one because of someone who thought he was above the law and didn't want to get stopped for a traffic infraction," said Maggie Mayo, a veteran Peacekeeper corporal who is the dead boy's aunt.
"People have to be held accountable," she said yesterday, seated with her sister at the kitchen table of the family home.
"Stop for the cops - that has to be the message."
"You did something wrong, so pull over - it's as simple as that," added the boy's grieving mother, Jewel McGowan.
To that end - and to call for a proper investigation of the incident, including the conduct of the Roussillon police - family and friends are to march this morning along the route of the high-speed chase. It's a cause that's also been taken up by the reserve's elected band council.
"We have to stop this baloney of thinking that Kahnawake is a safe haven for those who are guilty of doing something," said Joe Delaronde, the council's spokesperson.
"A lot of people are frustrated by this. It's happening often enough that people are really starting to complain."
With today's march, the Mohawks hope to prick people's consciences even more. It begins at 11 a.m. on Highway 132 at 1st Ave. before veering off onto a route known as Mohawk Trail, ending at the crash site - now dubbed Tylor's Corner. The site is a wasteland next to a gully and railway tracks.
The banks of the gully still show the tire tracks where the SUV came to a rest at the bottom, its driver uninjured. Just across the tracks is where the Roussillon patrolwoman turned her cruiser around and - unable in the dark to see either the SUV or the victim lying on the ground, according to police - followed orders from her dispatcher and leftthe reserve.
Her chase had covered 1.3 kilometres and lasted all of 33 seconds."She was alone, she had entered a territory she didn't know and she had lost sight of vehicle she'd been chasing," said Constable René Fleury, spokesperson for the force.
Alerted by a call from a resident, the Peacekeepers arrived almost immediately afterward.
Whether the Roussillon officer should have remained on the scene is not at issue, said Delaronde, the Kahnawake spokesperson. "All that's going to come out in the wash. I think a lot of this is really secondary.
"The real issue is the guy didn't stop - that's the real issue. He killed somebody because he didn't stop."
At the crash intersection, a new hydro pole stands where the last one was knocked down on impact. Its base has become a memorial: There are bouquets of flowers, several photos of the boy nicknamed Ty-Man, big plywood planks spraypainted with admonishments and reminders.
"SLOW DOWN," says one, while another gives a sad equation of the youth demographic in the neighborhood now that Tylor is gone: "# kids=85," it says, but the 85 has been crossed out and replaced with an 84.