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Manitoba native chiefs are calling for a public inquiry into the Winnipeg Police Service in the wake of the police shooting that killed Craig McDougall over the weekend.

McDougall, 26, was shot by officers who responded to a disturbance call around 5 a.m. Saturday at a house on Simcoe Street, in the city's West End neighbourhood. Police said he had refused repeated demands to drop a knife. ...

One witness at the news conference insisted there had been no knife, and several others said McDougall posed no danger to police because he had been on one side of a metre-high fence, while the officers were on the other.

"When I saw my son lying on the ground, I wanted to go to him to help him, but I was thrown on the ground and handcuffed," the slain man's father, Brian McDougall, said in a statement read by another family member. ...

McDougall's uncle was J.J. Harper, a 37-year-old native leader who was killed by police in March 1988 after he was stopped by officers who mistook him for a suspect in a car theft.

Harper's death sparked outrage in the aboriginal community, and prompted an inquiry into the provincial justice system's treatment of aboriginal people.

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Nothing has changed in 20 years. Racism against Aboriginal people - starting with the police forces and other state institutions - is as rampant as it was when I grew up on the Prairies.

[ 05 August 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]