GORE BAY— On the front page of last week’s Expositor, the story ‘Prison death inquest offers no suggestions’ fielded a phone call from James Weppler of Gore Bay, lawyer of the Jordan Trudeau family. Their son was a 27-year-old Wikwemikong man who was shot and killed at Millhaven Institute four years ago where he was an inmate at that time.
The Expositor, he pointed out, made the serious error of stating that Mr. Trudeau was serving a life sentence at Millhaven for his role in the murder of Clarence ‘Tate’ Lewis. Mr. Trudeau was in fact serving an eight-year sentence, with his eligibility for parole coming up, as he was found guilty of being an accessory after the fact in the homicide. Mr. Trudeau was not actually in Mr. Lewis’ home at the time of the murder. The Expositor regrets this error.
Mr. Weppler explained that before the inquest, the jury returned a verdict of ‘death by homicide’ in Mr. Trudeau’s death and that there were two federal lawyers there to contest that finding.
One other inmate, who survived the altercation, was shot in the fracas, not two as reported.
Mr. Weppler noted that in the past 10 years, six inmates across Canada have been shot by corrections officers and only one of those six have been killed—Jordan Trudeau. “In 12 minutes, one guard shot two of those six inmates, one fatally,” the lawyer said.
The reason there were no recommendations from the inquest, Mr. Weppler further explained, is because in the four years since Mr. Trudeau’s death, and as a direct result, changes have already been made at prisons across Canada, including a change in the kind of firearms guards now carry.
The Expositor apologizes for any distress the original story may have caused.
