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The Ottawa Police Service has opened a chief’s complaint against one of its own after an officer was accused of making racist online comments following the suspicious death of acclaimed Inuit artist Annie Pootoogook.

Pootoogook’s body was discovered on Sept. 19 in the water near Bordeleau Park in Lowertown. Police said last Friday her death wasn’t considered suspicious, but on Monday Staff Sgt. Bruce Pirt said “elements” of her death were now indeed suspicious and warrant further investigation.

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Pootoogook, 46, originally from Cape Dorset, Nunavut, attracted international attention for her drawings, which depicted gritty scenes of life in the North. In 2006, she won the $50,000 Sobey Art Award, and had had exhibitions of her work in Switzerland, Germany and New York. She had lived in Ottawa since 2007.

A comment on the Citizen’s story about Pootoogook’s death attributed to Facebook user Chris Hrnchiar seemed to blame Indigenous people for their own hardships: “Because much of the aboriginal population in Canada is just satisfied being alcohol or drug abusers, living in poor conditions etc…..they have to have the will to change, it’s not society’s fault.”