Canadian officials blasts parole board for releasing ex-con

The parole board that ordered ex-con Myles Sanderson’s release has been criticized by Canadian officials as a community mourns.

Sanderson, 32, and his brother Damien are accused of killing 10 and wounding 18 others in attacks that have spread across the James Smith Cree First Nation reservation and the nearby town of Regina.

As the Saskatchewan community came to terms with the deadly killing spree, many blamed the reservation for rampant drug and alcohol use, which they linked to repeated government failures over many years.

Sanderson has 59 criminal convictions, according to parole documents.

He had been serving a four-year and four-month prison sentence on charges including assault with a weapon, assault on a peace officer and robbery.

Public Safety Minister Mendicino said he had been told by the parole board that there would be an inquiry into Myles Sanderson’s sentence.

“I want to know the reasons behind the decision” to release him, he said.

“I am very concerned about what happened here.”

Many of his previous crimes occurred while intoxicated, and he told parole officers the drug use had driven him insane.

He had been wanted for a parole violation since May.

“The drug and alcohol problem on these reservations is totally out of control,” said Ivor Wayne Burns, whose sister was killed in the weekend’s attacks.

“We have dead people and we asked beforehand that something be done.”

Damien’s body was found near the attacks on Monday and police were investigating whether his brother had killed him.

The reserve, which has a population of about 1,900, takes its name from its chief, who, according to its website, signed an 1876 treaty for lands with the Canadian Crown and other tribes.

Other tribal members live off the reserve, totaling about 3,400 members.

Like many of Canada’s indigenous communities, it has been scarred by a dark history.

From the 19th century through the 1970s, more than 150,000 Native children in Canada were taken from their families and placed in government-funded Christian boarding schools.

The goal was to Christianize them and integrate them into mainstream society, which previous Canadian governments considered superior.

Indigenous leaders blame the legacy of abuse and isolation at these schools as a major cause of the epidemic rates of alcohol and drug addiction now blamed on Canadian reservations.

“This is the destruction we face when harmful illegal drugs enter our communities and we call on all authorities to take the leadership of Chiefs and Councils and their members to create safer and healthier communities for our people said Chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations.

The parole board cited the intergenerational impact of dormitories and said it may have contributed to Sanderson’s criminal past.

However, it was not clear whether the brothers or family members attended the schools.

Myles Sanderson had a long criminal history.

His childhood was marred by violence, neglect, and substance abuse, leading to a “cycle of substance abuse, negative peer seeking, and violent behavior,” according to the parole records.

He lived between his father’s house in a city and his grandparents’ house on a reservation. There was violence and abuse in both households, it said.

Sanderson began drinking and smoking marijuana around the age of 12 to help cope with problems, the document said. Cocaine soon followed.

Parole documents say he barged into his ex-girlfriend’s home in July 2017 while she was with friends, punching a hole in a bathroom door while his two children were hiding in a bathtub, and throwing a cement block on an outside parked vehicle threw .

He got into a fight at a shop a few days later and threatened to kill a clerk and burn down his parents’ home, documents say.

In November of that year, he threatened an accomplice to rob a fast-food restaurant by hitting him in the head with a firearm and stomping on his head.

Then he stood guard during the robbery.

In April 2018, while drinking, he stabbed two men with a fork and hit one unconscious person.

He twice got into trouble in prison for having contraband goods before being paroled on statutory release in August 2021. But he ran into trouble that year and his dismissal was altered for not being honest with his parole officer about continuing what he says is a “rocky” relationship with his common law spouse.

Myles Sanderson said his childhood “normalized substance abuse and violence.”

But Myles Sanderson said he “stayed sober, found employment as an elder’s assistant and arranged for a therapist to deal with domestic violence and other issues.”

And in February, the board lifted the suspensions and added conditions to limit and monitor common-law contact with his spouse and children.

The parole documents also state that he should not enter into relationships — either intimate or nonsexual — with women unless he has the prior written approval of his parole officer.

Sanderson was legally released from prison last summer.

It was revoked after he failed to communicate with his parole officer, but the board decided to just reprimand him.

“The Board believes that if you are legally released, you do not pose an undue risk to society,” it said.

In May, a Crime Stoppers Bulletin was issued for Sanderson, warning him that he was unlawfully at large.

Sharna Sugarman, who organized a GoFundMe for the victims, questioned the parole board about releasing him and why Sanderson was still at large so many months after he was declared “unlawfully at large.”

“This is just outrageous to me,” said Sugarman, a counselor who worked in the community in 2010 and 2011 and counted Gloria Lydia Burns as one of her clients.

‘If you say you were looking for him, then you weren’t looking that closely.’

Menicino, Canada’s public safety minister, said he “wanted to know if any mistakes were made during the (parole) process.”

“It has to be an independent review,” he said.