Mounties asking for witnesses to come forward after Indigenous woman claims men yelled racist, rude things at her family

HOPE (NEWS 1130) – An Indigenous woman is speaking out after she says a group of men yelled lewd and racist comments at her and her family while they were fishing along the Fraser River this past weekend.

It’s said to have happened along the river bank between Hope and Yale, where Stacy McNeil and her family from the Seabird Island First Nation fish every year.

“My two sons and I went up to our fish camp where my father and his spouse had stayed overnight, and we went up there to help check the nets and clean fish and get it prepared for the winter,” she tells NEWS 1130.

When they were on the beach cleaning fish, McNeil says a group of men in a speedboat anchored in front of them.

“They started to cast their rods,” she says. “We hadn’t really been paying attention to them, it happens quite often when they’re that close but we know usually to try and ignore them.”

The men, she says, were talking obnoxiously, swearing and cussing so loudly that her family could hear them from the riverbank. That’s when she says her step cousin yelled out to them to ask that they refrain from using crude language, especially in front of the children.

“They instantly started yelling ‘shut up’ and one of them started urinating off the back of the boat,” McNeil says. “Then my step cousin said ‘well that’s rude, there’s kids here please don’t urinate in front of them.’ And then he left his penis out and was waving it around and asking us to come over there and suck it. And then suck all of theirs, and they kept making rude comments like that.”

McNeil tried to ignore them, keeping her back turned to the men. However, she claims they didn’t stop, and others started to notice. She says she went up the hill to grab her cell phone and started to snap pictures of the men. Her father asked her to call 911.

“In the meantime, my children and my step cousin had come up behind me from the beach, not comfortable being down their by themselves anymore, and the men in the boat — there were five of them in total — three of them were more obnoxious than the other two, but they continued to shout. Yelling things like ‘dumb Indians,’ and ‘you guys are the ones stealing all the fish. You get free fish and free gas.’ They just kept slandering First Nations people.”

Despite repeated calls for the men to leave, McNeil says they didn’t. At a certain point, she says other members of her Band arrived to intervene.

“I was still on the phone with the RCMP, and I was telling her step-by-step what was happening out there,” she adds. “And I was telling [dispatch] where we were located, giving directions. In the meantime, three boats came up and parked around the sports fisherman’s boat and started to ask them to leave. Immediately the guys on the boat were yelling at them that us ladies had started it by yelling at them, and that they didn’t do anything wrong.

“Everyone on the boats, you could hear them saying ‘We could hear you down there, talking about us Indians. You need to get going.'”

Eventually, the group of men left, McNeil says, and still on the phone with the RCMP she adds a constable was supposedly on route.

“When the boat was drifting away, one of the men on the boat went to the back of the boat which was facing us and pulled his pants and underwear down to his ankles and was playing with his private parts and shouting obnoxious things… as they were drifting away.”

The RCMP says by the time an officer was available to be dispatched, the boat had left. McNeil says Mounties did contact her, asking that she send them the pictures she had taken.

While she says people “park” their boats in the area every year, she admits it’s never been this bad.

“This time it got more heated in terms of racial slurs that were being thrown at us, because usually they’re just swearing at us and calling us down in other ways. But this time it was really racial and people don’t think that these kinds of things happen to us, and it happens a lot on the river. It’s really unfortunate that these guys thought it was ok to do that in front of two women and three children.”

McNeil also claims the men were drinking while on the boat. The situation has had a big impact on her children, she adds.

“I kept my back to them as long as I could because my whole body was shaking, I was so angry. I was scared for my children because they had no idea why we were being yelled at, they didn’t understand it.”

She adds her nine-year-old was shaking uncontrollably and crying during the ordeal. “Usually we stay up at our fishing ground but he was so scared he didn’t want to be there ‘in case the bad people came back.'”

McNeil posted her experience on Facebook with the hopes that sharing her story will help raise awareness and remind people these kinds of things do happen.

RCMP pleads for witnesses

NEWS 1130 has confirmed with the RCMP that they were made aware of the situation.

Cpl. Mike Rail with the Upper Fraser Valley Regional Detachment says the RCMP received a report on Aug. 25 around 5:00 p.m. consistent with McNeil’s story.

“The Hope RCMP received the report of a disturbance on the Fraser River… I’m saying disturbance, it was indecent acts,” he says.

He adds an active investigation is underway, and that Mounties take this very seriously.

They’re looking to identify the men accused, and are also hoping to speak with any witnesses or people who have video or pictures.

“It’s serious in that no one condones that kind of activity,” he says. “It’s very serious as far people being treated that way.”

The investigation is still in its early stages, and it’s unclear what charges, if any, could be recommended.

Rail says the RCMP has received complaints on the Fraser River before, but adds they’ve never been this serious.

“We really want to get the word out and urge anyone with information [to come forward].”