A man who saved hundreds of Indigenous people has passed away

Recently, Darrell Night, a resident of Saskatoon and a representative of the Canadian Cree Nation, passed away. He was the one who helped expose one of the most horrifying crimes of racism in modern Canadian history and also saved hundreds of other Indigenous people.

In 2003, Darrell was at a party with friends and decided to step outside for some fresh air. He was drunk and didn't notice anything wrong when a police patrol stopped nearby. When an officer called him, he naively got into the car.

Only on the way did he start to sober up and worry: wandering around the city drunk is not a crime, and the police are clearly taking him not to the station, but somewhere outside Saskatoon. Scared, Darrell remembered rumors of terrible crimes committed by police against Indigenous people: they would take them far from the city and leave them in the cold without warm clothing. Usually, the victims painfully perished in low temperatures. In the city, such cases were cynically called "gone to see the stars."

Before, Darrell had doubted the truth of such stories, but now he became their hero. He began to beg the police to release him, but they did not respond. In the end, they threw him out of the car in a snowdrift far beyond Saskatoon and drove away.

It was -25 degrees Celsius that night. Even a warmly dressed person would find it difficult in such cold, but Darrell only had a light denim jacket. Luckily, he often visited these places and knew that there was a power station nearby. In despair, he headed there and began pounding on the door. The half-dead man from the cold was heard by the guard, who let him in and helped him warm up.

For his survival, Night thanks God and luck: he knew where to go, and his cry for help was heard by station employees. However, other Native Americans were less fortunate: two days later, Rodney Naistus and Lawrence Wegner were found frozen to death in the same spot where the police had thrown Darrell out of the car.

It turned out that the police had been "entertaining" themselves in this way since 1976. During this time, they managed to destroy hundreds of innocent people, whose names could not even be determined. All that was known about the victims was that they had somehow "gone to look at the stars" in winter without warm clothing.

It would have continued if it weren't for Darrell’s determined attitude. He found an experienced police officer whom the locals knew as a fair person without racial prejudices. It was with him that he shared the terrible truth. He proved worthy of his trust and reported what had happened to the authorities in the province of Saskatchewan. That's when the investigation began, which was greatly aided by Night's testimony.

The names of the criminals are still unknown to the public, but Canada and the world learned the truth, and the horrific crimes stopped. Now, the Saskatoon Native Americans are not afraid of police officers and trust them more. A documentary film "Two worlds colliding" was made about Darrell Night. It can be found online for free.