Silenced Witness

Those who have been following the Ipperwash inquiry closely have been waiting for testimony from the policeman who actually pulled the trigger and shot Dudley George dead.

They will be waiting forever:

Kenneth Deane, the elite Ontario Provincial Police paramilitary officer convicted of fatally shooting Indian activist Anthony (Dudley) George, was killed on the weekend in a traffic accident on Highway 401 in eastern Ontario.

Deane, 45, was in charge of a four-man sniper team late at night on Sept. 6, 1995, with the job of escorting the force's crowd management unit, or riot squad, as it marched toward about three dozen protestors outside Ipperwash Provincial Park.

Police marched on the park at night two days after Stoney Point Indians occupied the park, saying it contained sacred burial grounds. Their claims were later supported by documents released by the federal government.

Deane, nicknamed "Tex" by colleagues, was expected to be called as a witness next month at the Ipperwash inquiry before Mr. Justice Sidney Linden in the town of Forest, near the now-closed park.

The conspiracy theorists will be out in full force claiming that Deane's car accident was no accident at all. But one wonders why, because he has already given his version of events at the trial where he was convicted and the police tribunal that fired him.

But those are irrelevant details to those who have regarded the Ipperwash inquiry as a chance to put the entire Mike Harris era on trial, to make Dudley George a martyr at the hands of neo-conservatism.

Source: Toronto Star