According to the RCMP, 4 people were hit by the ‘impatient driver’ in the Indigenous march

Troy Ingraldi and Ashton Edwards helped direct traffic on Saturday as part of a march for survivors of the former St Mary’s Indian residential school when a driver behind the march became quarrelsome.

Troy Ingraldi, who was at the end of the walk, said the driver told the group they should not go on the road. He also said the driver turned his van around before he was hit by his vehicle and dragged away, causing him soft tissue damage, a cut to the lip and a minor concussion.

Meanwhile, Ashton Edwards said the truck collided with another group of people, including himself, and then drove off.

Participants were walking near the site of St Mary’s former boarding school on Lougheed Road at the time of the incident. Dozens of people, including Aboriginal seniors, women and children, attended.

Christopher Robertson, who was at the front of the march and singing, explained that a conductor behind the march started shouting at the participants when they were about 100 meters from the march door. St Mary’s.

I’m not entirely sure of all the words exchanged, but it certainly annoys some people, he said. Christopher Robertson said he started running in that direction and told others to set him free.

Soon, Christopher Robertson pointed to the driver, who was riding in a blue van, and asked to stop. But instead, he said, the driver accelerated and went straight to the pedestrians.

” I kind of jumped, jumped. He still ended up holding my right knee on the passenger side. My other brother somehow climbed on the hood, and landed at his feet … Five of us were all hit. “

Christopher Robertson said the victim who went over the hood, a traffic controller wearing a high-visibility vest, had a concussion and suffered multiple bruises after being hit. Most others, he says, already have swerte and pushed by the van.

A impatient driveraccording to RCMP

In a statement, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said the van came in contact with nearly four people, two of whom went to hospital. No children were affected.

The RCMP says no one is incarcerated and officers are gathering as much evidence as possible to determine the appropriate charges to recommend. The RCMP however, he was holding the suspect’s plate number and attempting to trace him, according to the statement.

The statement describes the man behind the wheel as an impatient driver who tried to drive around a group and said there was no indication that the incident was targeted or that the driver’s actions were related to people marching or their purpose.

Trying to buy a few minutes by risking the lives of others is unacceptable.Constable Harrison Mohr said in the statement.

Racial insults, according to an organizer

But for Christopher Robertson, who suffered minor injuries, and Garrett Dan, a witness to the hit-and-run and one of the march’s organizers, the incident underscores a larger problem.

For Garrett Dan, the claims of RCMP Nonsense. The organizer says there is much more to say about Saturday’s incident than their initial statement.

” [Le chauffeur] is shouting things. He was racist, used racist slurs. We have many witnesses to what happened to my brothers and sisters. “

The march was organized by the group Crazy Indians Brotherhood, an education and rehabilitation program involving Native men, with several groups throughout British Columbia. This is their second annual walk to honor the survivors of Mission’s old residential school.

Garrett Dan feels that the RCMP not taking the incident seriously enough. I really, really hate to say something like that, pero parang […] and if the skin [des victimes] different color? What if they were white and it happened?

Christopher Robertson couldn’t say what the driver’s intentions were, but he said he wasn’t the only impatient person on the road that day. Some people show respect, others don’t.

The RCMP did not respond to our requests for further comment on Sunday.

With information from The Canadian Press and Akshay Kulkarni