Families of missing Indigenous women and girls say police treated their cases with ‘apathy’

Warning: this story contains details of violence against Indigenous people that may be distressing for some readers. If you are feeling distress, you can call the Hope for Wellness Help Line, which offers counselling and crisis intervention 24/7 to Indigenous people across Canada, at 1-855-242-3310. You can also connect to the online chat at www.hopeforwellness.ca.

Relatives of several Indigenous women and girls who have gone missing in the Lower Mainland in recent years gathered via virtual press conference, organized by Amnesty International on Monday, to demand accountability from police.

The families of women and girls, including 20-year-old Tatyanna Harrison, 24-year-old Chelsea Poorman, and 13-year-old Noelle O’Soup, told reporters that they believe police failed to properly investigate the circumstances surrounding the disappearances and deaths of their relatives.

The organization said the cases highlight a crisis of violence against Indigenous women and girls in Canada.

“Families have reported that they have received very inadequate support from the police and that the investigations have been fraught with negligence,” Amnesty International said in a media advisory.

“This pattern of mismanagement, the lack of coordination between jurisdictions and police forces, and behaviours of apathy appear across each case, including in the disappearance of Ramona Wilson, who went missing in 1994 and whose case remains unsolved to this day.”

Poorman, who was living in Burnaby at the time of her death, was last seen by family members the night of Sept. 6, 2020. She had been at a party in Vancouver’s Granville Street area at the time, but texted her sister, who was also present, to say she was leaving to meet up with a man.

In spite of many heartfelt appeals from her family and friends, Poorman wouldn’t be found until more than a year later. Her body was spotted by a construction worker in late April 2022, in the backyard of an abandoned mansion in the Shaughnessy neighbourhood.

The Vancouver Police Department said that she likely died in the vicinity of the mansion on the same night she disappeared, but said at the time that her death was not considered suspicious.

Her mother Sheila Poorman told Monday’s press conference that she felt police in Vancouver had never taken her daughter’s disappearance as seriously as they should, particularly given that Chelsea had a brain injury that made her quite vulnerable.

“They never took that into consideration. They never put her on their website until 10 or 11 days later. You’d think Chelsea being a vulnerable person, she’d be made as a person who needs more attention. No footage from the businesses along Granville were ever asked for from the police,” Sheila Poorman said.

“I would watch the news and notice that others would go missing and they were on the news, and the police department also made a press release for them the same day. It was so frustrating to see how they were treated compared to Chelsea.”

VPD first issued a press release advising the media and the public of Chelsea Poorman’s disappearance on Sept. 18, 2020—11 days after she was reported missing.

Sheila Poorman said she and her family ended up canvassing for clues about her daughter’s disappearance themselves, putting up posters and showing photos to people on the street in case they had seen something.

“I did what I could, but felt defeated and alone looking for her. … We also hired a private investigator at this time to help us, but they couldn’t find anything. We’d also be calling Vancouver police for updates on what was going on with their case. But they never had anything new,” she said.

“[During] one call, my oldest daughter was told that they more or less had other important matters to tend to. She was so upset hearing that—no one deserves to be treated as though their missing loved ones are not important or didn’t matter.”

Sheila Poorman questioned why it took so long for police to determine that the remains found at the Shaughnessy mansion were in fact Chelsea’s when she had several metal rods in her limbs that could have helped to identify her more quickly.

And she also criticized the VPD’s characterization of Chelsea Poorman’s death as “not suspicious”—saying that her daughter’s disabilities meant that she likely wouldn’t have been able to reach the mansion’s backyard, which was fenced off, by herself.

“So someone helped her to get in there, and into that yard. Why couldn’t anyone smell her decomposing body? And what happened to her, where parts of the body were missing? Police had this nerve to publicly say it was not suspicious,” she said.

“No, they need to be doing a better job for families of Indigenous women that go missing.”

VPD have since said that the case remains open and that it is pursuing all investigative leads, but that “there is insufficient evidence right now to suggest [Poorman’s] death was the result of a crime.”

Earlier this year, meanwhile, the RCMP was asked to conduct a review into the VPD’s investigation of the case, to “make sure that there isn’t another angle we could look at, or an investigative step that we’ve missed—and to take some advice from their review, moving forward to see if we can further advance the file.”

Burnaby RCMP, meanwhile, tells the Beacon that it was only briefly involved in investigating the Burnaby resident’s disappearance—following up on a possible sighting before it was discovered that Chelsea Poorman had died.

Sheila Poorman said she’d like a new bylaw to be put in place that would require abandoned buildings like the one where her daughter’s remains were found to be searched within 24-48 hours of a vulnerable person being reported missing.

She remembered her daughter as a kind and caring person who always wanted to take in stray animals.

“Chelsea was a young lady who had so [many] dreams, just like any other young lady her age. This Oct. 12, she would have been 27 years old. Chelsea was a person who persevered through many difficult situations in her life. Her mental health was a major obstacle in her life, but she never let that stop her from trying to live her life to the fullest,” Sheila Poorman said.

“… She also wanted to help people as much as she [could]. One of the things that she loved to do was drive around in the afternoon to hand out hot chocolate or coffee to those on the streets.”

Attendees to Monday’s press conference, which was held on the eve of the annual Sisters in Spirit vigil across Canada to honour the memories of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, also heard from relatives of 13-year-old Noelle O’Soup—whose remains were found in an apartment on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside after she went missing from her Port Coquitlam group home.

As the CBC reported Monday, a man linked to her death was deemed a “danger to the public” and ordered deported six years before her body was found in his apartment—but he was then released from immigration custody.

The man, Van Chung Pham, was found dead in February and a VPD officer attended his apartment shortly after—but the bodies of O’Soup and another woman were apparently missed. Police only found their bodies more than two months later, when residents of the SRO (single-room occupancy) building complained of a foul smell coming from Pham’s unit.

The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls notes that “persistent and deliberate human and Indigenous rights violations and abuses are the root cause behind Canada’s staggering rates of violence against Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA people.”

According to the Native Women’s Association of Canada, Indigenous women are seven times more likely than non-Indigenous women to become victims of murder, and three times more likely to become victims of sexual violence.