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Description

For decades, Indigenous communities in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan whispered about a police practice called a "starlight tour" — officers detaining First Nations men and abandoning them on the frozen outskirts of the city in sub-zero temperatures. In this episode, we trace the story from the 1990 death of seventeen-year-old Neil Stonechild, found frozen with handcuff marks on his wrists, to the harrowing winter of 2000, when two more frozen bodies were discovered near the same power station where survivor Darrell Night had barely escaped with his life days earlier. Night's courage in coming forward shattered decades of denial, triggered a landmark public inquiry, and forced a nation to confront a truth it had long refused to hear.

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Sources: 

CBC News. "RCMP Investigate Two Freezing Deaths." CBC, 16 Feb. 2000. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/rcmp-investigate-two-freezing-deaths-1.227672

CBC News. "Sask. Man at Centre of Historic ‘Starlight Tours’ Police Misconduct Case Has Died." CBC, 23 Apr. 2023. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/darrell-night-died-starlight-tour-1.6818232

CBC News. "Saskatoon Police Removed ‘Starlight Tours’ Section from Wikipedia, Student Says." CBC, 31 Mar. 2016. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/saskatoon-police-starlight-tours-wikipedia-delete-1.3512586

Commission of Inquiry into Matters Relating to the Death of Neil Stonechild. "Background Information." Government of Saskatchewan. https://www.stonechildinquiry.ca/backgrounder.shtml

Commission of Inquiry into Matters Relating to the Death of Neil Stonechild. Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Matters Relating to the Death of Neil Stonechild. Government of Saskatchewan, Oct. 2004. http://www.publications.gov.sk.ca/freelaw/Publications_Centre/Justice/Stonechild/Stonechild-FinalReport.pdf

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Chicken, Priscilla. "Starlight Tours Show Anti-Indigenous Racism in Canadian Policing." The Manitoban, Mar. 2024. https://themanitoban.com/2024/03/starlight-tours-show-anti-indigenous-racism-in-canadian-policing/46968/

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