Amber Redman
Amber Redman
Amber Redman was a young Dakota woman from Standing Buffalo Dakota First Nation, in south-east Saskatchewan. Amber graduated from high school in 2003 and took a year off to help look after two children, four and two years-old, the daughters of her mother’s niece. She planned to put in an application for university. Amber wanted to be a teacher.
Amber’s mother, Gwenda Yuzicappi says of her daughter, “Amber is very shy, quiet -- yet powerful. She has a beautiful spirit in her.”
In the early hours of Friday, July 15, 2005, Amber went missing while out at a bar in the town of Ft. Qu’Appelle, approximately 80 km east of Regina.
On May 5 2008, nearly three years after she disappeared, Amber’s body was found dead in the bush on the Little Black Bear First Nation. Two men from that community were charged with first-degree murder. Charges against one later dropped while the other pled guilt to a lesser charge of second-degree murder.
On the night of her disappearance, Amber got into an argument with her boyfriend who left the bar without her. A day later, Amber’s boyfriend called her mother to check that Amber had made it home safely. Gwenda, who had assumed that Amber was with her boyfriend, began calling around. At first she thought that Amber had likely gone away with friends because there was a powwow in a neighbouring community.
On Monday, Amber’s boyfriend filed a Missing Person report with the local RCMP detachment Fort Qu’Appelle. Meanwhile, Gwenda phoned all of the hospitals in the surrounding area and the Regina Police Service and RCMP in Ft. Qu’Appelle to ask if they had any information. She was starting to become extremely worried for her daughter.
The police issued a media release seeking information on Amber’s disappearance that Wednesday. The RCMP would eventually work with the community to carry out a series of ground searches, as well as an infrared search by plane of the Qu’Appelle valley. The family itself conducted about six searches on their own as well as consulting Elders on the situation. More than two years after Amber’s disappearance, the family still had no concrete information about her whereabouts.
Although the family speaks positively of their interaction with police, Gwenda also believes that the initial police response was too slow and that it took the involvement of Indigenous political leaders to have Amber’s disappearance taken as seriously as it deserved.
However, an officer with the Fort Qu’Appelle detachment said the RCMP has come to recognize the seriousness of the threats faced by Indigenous women and make it their practice to respond immediately when anyone goes missing. The officer reported that within the first week and a half after Amber’s disappearance, police had logged more than 1000 hours in the search for her.
An Indigenous woman officer who knew the family was assigned as the contact person for the family. After the female officer’s departure from the force, the contact changed to a male constable who Gwenda also knew. He initially came out almost every week to speak with her and as time passed remained in contact with the family.
In October 2005, Gwenda joined the Native Women’s Association of Canada and Amnesty International at a press conference at Parliament Hill to urge great action to address violence against Indigenous women. She said at the time, “I have met other families, other mothers and fathers who have daughters and sisters that are missing. And that is a tragedy. I am asking that the police, our leaders, our government to address these issues, to ensure that I'm the last mother that comes to promote this issue.”
To read a letter from the Yuzicappi and Redman family, click here
Updated: 29 September 2009