If things had gone differently this summer, you might be reading an article by Marlan Chookomolin right now. The twenty-five-year-old First Nations man from Thunder Bay, Ontario was due to begin his studies in communications at the local Confederation College in September. Ron Chookomolin, Marlan's father, describes his son's ambitions: "he will go into journalism," he says, still using the simple future tense before he corrects himself. "He was excited. Marlan believed he was the only person who could communicate with Indigenous people under the bridges and in the bushes, because he knew how to talk to them."

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Instead, on June 25, Marlan Chookomolin was discovered badly beaten on a trail in the north end of Thunder Bay. According to Ron, there was bruising around his son's neck and evidence of blunt force trauma to the back of his head. His organs failing, Marlan was put on life support by the hospital to allow his mother to fly in to see him. Desperate for his son not to be forgotten, Ron invited the media into the room. They took a photo of Ron beside the deathbed, with Marlan connected to machines, unrecognizable. Marlan died the next day, surrounded by family. The scene brings to mind a photo from 1955 in which the parents of Emmett Till—a fourteen-year-old black boy lynched after a white woman in Mississippi said he whistled at her—pose over his mutilated body. The photo shook America and made it impossible to deny the humanity of the lynching victims. "Let people see what I've seen," explained Mamie Till Mobley, referring to her decision to have an open-casket funeral for her son.

Marlan Chookomolin's father, Ron, invited media into the room to see his son on his deathbed in hopes he would not be forgotten. Photo courtesy of Ron Chookomolin

As of this writing, the investigation into Marlan's death appears to have hit a dead end—an all-too-common trajectory for police investigations of First Nations deaths in Thunder Bay. No arrests have been made, no charges filed, and, five months later, no decision reached on what happened. It's this type of inaction that has sparked two unprecedented investigations into the Thunder Bay Police Service (TBPS). The first, launched in November 2016 and led by Ontario's Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD), is looking at allegations that systemic racism influenced investigations into the deaths of nearly forty people, most of whom were First Nations. These investigations have been described as rushed and haphazard by members of the Indigenous community, who point to numerous examples of police declaring deaths accidental without waiting for an autopsy, pursuing testimony, or reaching out to witnesses.

The second investigation is being led by Senator Murray Sinclair. Appointed in July by the Ontario Civilian Police Commission, the former Truth and Reconciliation chief commissioner is studying the effectiveness of TBPS's civilian oversight body. In a thirty-five-page interim report released in October—in which he wrote at length about pending recommendations intended to help officers tackle, within their organization, "discrimination against Indigenous people in the community"—Sinclair confirmed a long-held suspicion among First Nations that local police aren't taking Native deaths seriously.

Both these investigations are occurring in the face of evidence that First Nations lives are being lost at an alarming and disproportionate rate in Thunder Bay. While the city accounts for barely 5 percent of the Indigenous population in Ontario, it accounts for roughly 37 percent of the province's Indigenous murder victims. Thunder Bay has more than three times as many First Nations murder victims than the entire province of Quebec, which has more than twelve times as many Indigenous people. In raw numbers, more Native people are murdered in Thunder Bay than in any Canadian city, save Winnipeg. One of the most shocking killings started with an assault on January 29 of this year, when thirty-four-year-old Barbara Kentner, who was walking along the road with her sister, was struck by a trailer hitch thrown from a passing car. "I got one!" is what her sister remembers hearing someone shout.

Kentner died on July 4, the same day as Marlan's funeral. Eighteen-year old Brayden Bushby was charged with second-degree murder in early November, after Native leaders lobbied police for months to upgrade the original charge of aggravated assault. The frustration sparked an online petition that collected more than 40,000 signatures. "I'm signing because it is about time our Aboriginal population is treated as first class citizens," wrote one petitioner. "This was a hate crime and he needs to be charged with murder as that was his intent."

First Nations people seem to be in greater danger in Thunder Bay than anywhere else in Canada. In addition to