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Spheres of Influence

Canada’s Best-Kept Secret: Starlight Tours 

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What Are Starlight Tours?

First documented in 1976, Starlight Tours are a Canadian police practice that continues until today. Starlight Tours happen in Western Canada, notably in the provinces of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta. The practice involves law enforcement officers driving Indigenous people to remote locations and leaving them stranded in sub-zero temperatures. These tours begin with police typically profiling and arresting Indigenous people for alleged drunkenness or disorderly behavior. Such judgements, however, are often founded upon stereotypes and are inaccurate in many instances. Victims will often have their clothes and belongings taken by officers, further exposing them to the harsh elements. Despite intentionally leaving victims defenseless in freezing temperatures, the cause of death for someone who does not survive is simply “hypothermia.” No police officers have been charged with murder for carrying out a Starlight Tour.

Canada’s Legal History With Starlight Tours

For decades, the Canadian public has overlooked Starlight Tours. Within Indigenous communities, this practice is all too familiar. Darrell Night , a Saulteaux First Nation member and survivor of a Starlight Tour, best describes the horrifying nature of these tours. He said of the experience, “I thought I was dead. All those rumours I heard in the past, they were all coming true.”

On January 28, 2000, two officers took Night out of town and left him stranded. He was wearing only a light denim jacket in -25 Celsius weather. Night told the officers, “I’ll freeze to death out here,”  to which one officer replied, “That’s your f-ing problem.” Night survived after walking to a nearby power plant and pounding on the door for nearly 30 minutes until a worker heard him. Days after the incident, the frozen bodies of two other Indigenous men – 25-year-old Rodney Naistus and 30-year-old Lawrence Wegner – were found close to where Night was left. 

After the two deaths, Night came forward to report his experience to the authorities. The similarity of the three cases prompted an RCMP internal investigation, which led to a series of inquests. Judicial inquiries into the deaths of four men opened. Those men were Lloyd Dustyhorn , Rodney Naistus , Lawrence Wegner and Neil Stonechild . All four were victims of Starlight Tours, and in all four cases, the jury concluded their deaths were accidental, either caused by hypothermia or unknown circumstances. 

Night, however, did see some justice . The two police officers who took Night – Ken Munson and Dan Hatchen – were suspended without pay, found guilty of unlawful confinement, and ordered to serve an eight-month jail sentence. Unfortunately, they were free after serving only half of their sentences. 

The Province of Saskatchewan created a commission of inquiry into the death of Neil Stonechild, criticizing the Saskatoon Police Service and making eight recommendations for change. They recommended increasing the number of Indigenous police officers, designating an Aboriginal peace officer with the rank of Sergeant, improving race relations and anger management training for officers, and making it easier for the public to file complaints against the police. Nineteen years later, progress remains slow, and Starlight Tours continue happening. 

Starlight Tours Today

According to mainstream news networks, the most recent Starlight Tour incident is that of Jeremiah Skunk of Mishkeegogamang First Nation. In the summer of 2019, an Ontario Provincial Police officer took the young man, left him on the side of a highway and told him not to return. He walked, in intense heat, for 10 to 14 hours to Gull Bay, the closest community to him. In a CBC interview, Skunk recalled that he had to drink water out of puddles on the side of the road to stay hydrated, stating, “I could have died.” As shocking as his account is, Skunk is not the most recent Starlight Tour victim, not by a long shot. 

On April 4, 2023, a video on the social media platform TikTok described the practice of Starlight Tours. In the comments, hundreds of users united to share their stories. Some shared first-hand accounts, and others shared the stories of their loved ones. 

• User A wrote: “Had a cousin and uncle die from this. On their record, it states [they] drank too much. Both never drank in their life.”
• User B wrote: “Happened to my brother! Took his shoes and jacket, he walked back to the city and it took almost 3 hours until he got back.”
• User C said: “Worst is when they take your belt shoelaces [and] warm coats, been stranded outskirts of town myself multiple times … “
• User D wrote: “They did this to me while I was 8 months pregnant in the rain … I only had a tank top and leggings on, it was freezing, probably walked for 6 hours before I got picked up.” 

There is a reason why these stories are not brought to the forefront. Without media coverage, the public cannot develop an understanding of an issue, its prevalence, or its impact. Since Starlight Tours are underreported, the public can perceive them as isolated, rare incidents. People can underestimate the severity and scope of this practice and remain unaware that they are a systemic issue. 

Additionally, when Starlight Tours go unreported, those responsible escape scrutiny. Media is instrumental in holding individuals and institutions accountable. The Saskatoon Police Service was well aware of this when Addison Herman, a University Student, caught them removing the “Starlight Tours” section from their department’s Wikipedia page multiple times between 2012 and 2013. In 2022 the Saskatchewan Provincial Government chose not to include Starlight Tours in their school curriculum. These actions are not accidental; they are an intentional pattern of erasure and colonial violence. 

Police Brutality in Canada

Colonialism is not a past phenomenon. It is an ongoing process of discrimination, trauma, and unfair treatment. Within the criminal justice system, it manifests as systemic racism. Systemic racism is when an institution’s behaviours, policies, or practices create or perpetuate racial inequalities. It helps explain the persistence of Starlight Tours in Canada. 

Because Starlight Tours targets Indigenous people, they are a form of racial discrimination and police brutality. Police brutality is excessive force used by a police officer. By forcibly taking Indigenous peoples and abandoning them in extreme conditions, officers abuse their power and cause unnecessary harm. But Tours are not limited to the actions of a few “bad apples” like the media may suggest. The system and structures create and uphold those who perpetrate these acts. 

Systemic racism and biases baked into legal institutions are what enable Starlight Tours. Given this, an explicit focus on those systems and structures is pertinent. System-wide change is necessary. Across all levels of government, there needs to be a commitment to addressing structural racism. This commitment means reforming legislation and policy, implementing anti-racism training, funding Indigenous police programs , and re-establishing a genuine relationship with Indigenous communities. The federal government should develop a measure of structural racism to track progress. To ensure transparency, it should make the regularly collected data of the measure public.

What Can You Do?

To help prevent Starlight Tours, a series of steps can be taken. Listen to marginalized voices that too often get silenced. Learn from news networks that amplify Indigenous stories, like APTN News , IndigiNews and Indigenous Network . Sharing information and raising awareness is necessary to help generate public pressure for change. Help out associations that support Indigenous communities like Reconciliation Canada , The Urban Native Youth Association , and The Support Network for Indigenous Women and Women of Colour . If possible, donate to organizations that aid Indigenous people, like Indspire, The Native American Rights Fund , and The Indian Residential School Survivors’ Society.

Madalynn Hausch

Madalynn is currently studying political science at the University of British Columbia. Her research interests include gender in politics, sexual and reproductive health rights, Big Tech, and data justice.... More by Madalynn Hausch

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Freezing Deaths: The Starlight Tours

In the 90s and early 2000s, the Saskatoon Police Service faced public and legal scrutiny for practicing what became colloquially known as the "Starlight Tours." In summary, a Starlight Tour happens when an Indigenous person, frequently Indigenous men, is picked up by the police at night and abandoned outside of the city limits in subzero termpatures. An egregious abuse of power, tours were carried out in winter, and the men were left to freeze. This practice came to public eye after one man, Darryl Night, survived an attempted tour and filed a complaint against the SPS officers.

It was only after Darryl Night came forward that the deaths of Neil Stonechild, Rodney Naistus, and Lawrence Wegner were deemed suspicious. Because of existing prejudice and racism within the police force, it was assumed that these men had 'gotten drunk' and wandered off into the night. When Darryl Night came forward with his complaint, it triggered a demand for an independent inquiry into the deaths of Stonechild, Naistus, and Wegner. The two officers implicated in the Darryl Night case were found guilty of unlawful confinement and were fired from the police force and sent to jail for a minimum sentence. The Wright Inquiry into the death of Neil Stonechild implicated the Saskatoon Police Service in the death of Stonechild. It found that their initial investigation was superficial and completely inadequate. Justice Wright also determined that Stonechild was in the care of the police the night of his murder and they were ultimately at fault for his death, though no officers have ever been formally charged. The inquiries into the deaths of Naistus and Wegner made no conclusive statements, but it is imperative to acknowledge they are victims of Starlight Tours as well. 

The freezing deaths of Indigenous men in Saskatoon exacerbated the already strained relationship between the Saskatoon Police Service and the Indigenous community. Many Indigenous people reported to the special investigator appointed by the FSIN that they were fearful of the police and did not feel comfortable reporting concerns out of fear that their claims would not be taken seriously. The inquiry revealed a distinct lack of trust in the police service, respondents fearing that more community members would one day too be victims of a Starlight Tour. Over-policing in city areas with a high representation of Indigenous residents contributes to this unequitable power imbalance, makes Indigenous residents feel like they are constantly under surveillance, and is a function of systemic racism that unjustly categorizes Indigenous people as 'trouble-makers.' Starlight Tours also reveal disturbing colonial ideology which places value on the lives of white settlers over the lives of Indigenous peoples, reflected by the failure to address the suspicious deaths and the initial explanation of accidental death by intoxication. Starlight Tours, and the dismissal of Naistus, Wegner, and Stonechild's deaths as a result of "intoxication" by public agencies demonstrates how systemic racism endangers the lives of Indigenous people. 

• Razack, Sherene. ""It Happened More than Once": Freezings Death in Saskatchewan." Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 26, no. 1 (2014): 51-80. 
• The Honourable Mr. Justice David H. Wright. Report of the Commission of Inquiry Into Matters Relating to the Death of Neil Stonechild. Government of Saskatchewan. October 2004. 

First Nation demands OPP officer fired after allegedly leaving man on remote northern Ontario highway

Opp say it has investigated the incident, and re-assigned the officer.

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First Nations leaders are calling for the Ontario Provincial Police to fire one of its sergeants after she allegedly left a man on the side of a remote highway and told him not to return to a northern Ontario township in the summer of 2019.

The incident was essentially a "starlight tour," said Wilfred King, chief of Gull Bay First Nation (also known as Kiashke Zaaging Anishinabek). That's a practice where police officers would drive people, often Indigenous people suspected of public intoxication, out of a town, then leave them on the side of the road to fend for themselves.

"This individual's charter rights were violated. His human rights were violated and his legal rights were violated," King told CBC News.

"She should be dismissed from the police service, because it's criminal behaviour. That type of behavior should not go unchallenged."

In a statement to CBC News, OPP spokesperson Bill Dickson said the matter was investigated, and the officer in question was removed from the Gull Bay area. Dickson said he couldn't provide details "on any potential informal disciplinary measures which may have been taken," because it is a confidential, personnel matter.

CBC News has not been able to independently verify what happened and has asked Dickson if the sergeant would be able to give an interview, but the OPP has not responded to that request. 

King, and other experts that have researched starlight tours and police abandonment, say any officer that takes someone into police custody without due process and then abandoning them exhibits criminal behaviour.

'I could have died'

The man who was left on the side of the road, Jeremiah Skunk of Mishkeegogamang First Nation, said OPP Sgt. Tammy Bradley should be fired.

In an interview with CBC News, Skunk said he was visiting his then-girlfriend in Armstong, Ont., located 250 kilometres north of Thunder Bay and 70 kilometres north of Gull Bay, in July or August 2019. He was outside her home after they had a dispute, when Bradley arrived, put him in handcuffs and into the back of the cruiser.

She was going to bring him to the detachment in nearby Whitesand First Nation, but he asked her to drive him to Thunder Bay, located 190 kilometres south of Gull Bay, because he didn't know anyone else in the area.

Instead, Skunk said she drove him about 10 minutes down the road, took off his handcuffs, and let him out with half a bottle of water and a sandwich.

She told me not to come back to Armstrong, or I will be charged with trespassing. - Jeremiah Skunk, recounting his encounter with OPP Sgt. Tammy Bradley

"She told me not to come back to Armstrong, or I will be charged with trespassing," Skunk recalled. 

So he walked for 10 to 14 hours to Gull Bay, the next closest community on the remote highway, on a hot summer day, Skunk said. Along the way, he had to drink water out of puddles on the side of the road to stay hydrated, and had an encounter with a mother bear and two cubs.

"I could have died," he said. "I could have [been] killed by a bear." 

When Skunk arrived to Gull Bay, he told one of the two officers at the Gull Bay Police Department, and says he also submitted a complaint to a police organization in Toronto, but he doesn't remember where he made the complaint.

He says his memory is fuzzy, but sometime in 2021 an officer he thinks was in Kenora, Ont., called to hear what happened. Skunk says he never heard back, and doesn't know what happened to Bradley or if she was disciplined.

"Any cop that does things like that, they should be fired from their position," he said, adding he doesn't trust police officers after this happened.

OPP spokesperson Dickson said the allegations were investigated by their Professional Standards Unit, and Skunk was notified of the findings — although Skunk says he doesn't remember any meeting with the OPP.

Bradley has not served in the area around Armstrong since February 2022, and she has been reassigned to "non-frontline duties" in another part of the province, Dickson added.

Long history of police 'starlight tours' in Canada

This practice of police abandonment of Indigenous people has a long history in Canada, according to two researchers that spoke with CBC News.

Both said they were disturbed but not surprised to hear Skunk's allegations.  

Susan Schuppli, based at Goldsmiths, University of London, has investigated the way cold and temperature has been used as an often clandestine instrument of policing in North America.

Starlight tours are one example, Schuppli said, as a practice that was uncovered in Saskatchewan in the early 2000s where Indigenous people in particular were taken into police custody, often late at night and in the depths of winter, driven to the outskirts of town and abandoned, forced to walk back alone.

In 1990, Neil Stonechild, 17, was found frozen to death in a remote field on the outskirts of Saskatoon , and more than a decade later, two officers were fired but never criminally charged for their role in the death of Stonechild.

Three other men were found frozen to death outside Saskatoon in January and February 2000 , although inquests into their deaths didn't reveal what happened leading up to their deaths .Two police officers were found guilty of unlawful confinement in relation to conducting a starlight tour with a fourth man during that same time in January 2000.

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"Any instance where someone is taken into police custody, where the necessary paperwork isn't filed … where there's an abdication of all institutional responsibility and ethical responsibility for that person, as far as I'm concerned, that is in effect a starlight tour," Schuppli said.

"The minute somebody is abandoned, that they're not processed properly when they're taken into police custody, that is the crime … that's an extremely abusive and violent act."

It's a practice that dates back to the very creation of policing in Canada, said Travis Hay, an assistant professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary. Historically, police enforced a system of removing Indigenous peoples from city spaces, limiting their free movement and keeping them on reserve, he said.

It began in a literal sense, with the pass system, which forced First Nations people to get a pass approved by an Indian agent to leave the reserve, and continues with episodes like the one Skunk described as happening to him, Hay said. 

"Indigenous peoples, especially if they're seen as being intoxicated, can be opened up to forms of police violence that go from harassment to assault to unlawful confinement and all the way up to murder in the case of some of these freezing deaths [in Saskatchewan]," he added.

Gull Bay waiting for response to 3 complaints

Gull Bay Chief Wilfred King said this behaviour requires a transparent investigation and public accountability, something they haven't seen happen in the last three years.

In addition to the complaint Skunk says he made, King said Gull Bay had also filed a complaint with the OPP in 2019. Nothing came of it, so King said they filed an additional complaint directly with the OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique in February 2022, who assured the community they would investigate and share the results of the investigation.

King says besides a few calls and emails, they don't know the findings of the investigation or the discipline process.

To him, the OPP's decision to post Bradley elsewhere in Ontario is in effect "a promotion rather than a disciplinary measure when you consider that most OPP officers do not want to be posted in the North.

"She still holds the rank of a sergeant, and I'm not sure if she is supervising other police officers [or if] she's located in and around First Nations," King said.

Dickson said they can't share the results of the investigation with the leadership of Gull Bay because they "were not complainants in the matter."

Two additional serious complaints have been made to OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique about the conduct of Bradley. Those include allegations that she stole equipment from the OPP Armstrong detachment, and directed charges to be laid against a Gull Bay community member and a staff member of the First Nation — both without grounds or evidence.

King says the OPP still have not responded to those complaints.

In a statement Monday morning, OPP spokesperson Dickson said the force considers one of the complaints to be resolved, and the organization is currently reviewing the other against Sgt. Bradley.

Gull Bay will continue to push for answers to these complaints, King said, and plans to bring forward motions at upcoming Chiefs of Ontario and Assembly of First Nations meetings.

"I don't have any faith in that police service at all, and I really think there's a real need now to have First Nation policing across Canada in all First Nation communities."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Logan Turner is a former journalist for CBC News based in Thunder Bay, Ont.

• Follow Logan Turner on Twitter.
• Read more of his stories here.

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Starlight Tours

Episode #138.

2020-04-17 11:47:14

In January 2000, the bodies of two First Nations men were found frozen in a remote area of Saskatoon, Canada. It was a place where nobody walked, especially in the winter. And then, a man named Darrell Night came forward and said he had been dropped off by police on the outskirts of town, but he had made it back alive.

We speak with former police officer Ernie Louttit and reporter Dan Zakreski about the deaths of Neil Stonechild, Lawrence Wegner, and Rodney Naistus, and “starlight tours” within the Saskatoon Police Service.

Sask. man whose allegations led to trial over police 'Starlight Tours' dies at 56

A Saskatchewan man at the centre of an infamous police misconduct trial passed away on April 2.

On Jan. 28, 2000, Darrell Night was picked up by Saskatoon police officers Kenneth Munson and Daniel Hatchen and dropped off on the outskirts of the city by the Queen Elizabeth Power Station — a practice that came to be known as a “starlight tour.”

He was left to walk back in only light clothing in temperatures around -25 C, according to court records. Night pounded on the door of the power station until an attendant heard and he was able to go inside and call a cab.

He died at the age of 56 and was buried on April 17 in a cemetery in Saulteaux First Nation, near North Battleford, according to an online obituary.

Night came forward with his story following the discovery in early 2000 of the bodies of two Indigenous men, Rodney Naistus and Lawrence Wegner, in the same area police left him.

Night’s story was a catalyst that led to the inquiry into the death of Neil Stonechild , a 17-year-old Saulteaux boy whose body was found frozen in a field in the northwest outskirts of Saskatoon a decade earlier.

Munson and Hatchen were later found guilty of unlawful confinement in a jury trial.

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The incident shattered Night’s faith in law enforcement.

“Munson and Hatchen have given me a different perspective towards the police. I have no trust whatsoever towards policemen,” Night wrote in his victim impact statement.

It also created “a sharp division of feelings in the community,” said then-Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Eugene Scheibel.

“There have been demonstration of protest by the Aboriginal community and others in support of the police. It was a highly emotional trial,” Scheibel wrote in a 2001 judgment.

In a move Scheibel described as “surprising and ironical,” Munson and Hatchen attempted to propose a sentencing circle following their guilty verdict. Scheibel rejected it, saying it required the participants to show some level of remorse — a sentiment he found lacking in the two police officers.

“The issue of accepting responsibility for their actions has been ignored and continues to be ignored in the submissions on behalf of each accused,” he said.

“Hatchen's statement indicates he is remorseful because he feels ‘real shame for the trouble this is going to cause the service and [his] fellow officers.’ There is no reference of remorse for what happened to Night.”

In any case, Night also refused the suggestion.

“Who could fault him for his refusal to participate in what he sees as a sham, one lacking in sincerity, one lacking in true remorse and one where those who have inflicted the wrong accept no responsibility for their actions,” said Scheibel. 

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This Was The First Documented Starlight Tour Case

So-called Starlight Tours refer to a particular practice by Canada's Saskatoon Police that is rarely documented but has resulted in at least five First Nations men freezing to death, including a 17-year-old boy, in the "wind-whipped prairie," according to the Washington Post .

 A Starlight Tour is when police drive intoxicated Indigenous people out of town and leave them to walk home and sober up. According to CBC News , the practice was mostly the stuff of urban legend due to a lack of police reports from either side, but the activity underscores a long history of racism against Canada's Indigenous people who were dropped off many miles from home in freezing cold temperatures and left to try to make it home on foot.

The practice was first documented in 1976, Two Row Times reported, when two aboriginal men and a woman who was eight months pregnant were picked up by a Saskatoon police officer and dropped off outside of the city, left to make it home on their own.

The situation is described in the 2005 book, " Starlight Tour: The Last Lonely Night of Neil Stonechild. " According to the woman in the 1976 case, an officer approached her and her companions about drinking in public and told them to get into his cruiser. At first she thought they were going to jail. But that's not where they went. 

The woman was the first person to report a Starlight Tour

According to the woman, the three friends fell into silence as the cruiser took them outside of town, not understanding what was happening. The cruiser came to a stop. The officer silently got out of the car, grabbed them each by the collar and pulled them out before getting back behind the wheel and wordlessly driving away. At first, she said they were relieved to have been released unharmed, but then, they realized how far they were from town. During the long walk home she resolved to report the incident, even though she thought no one would believe her. In the end, the woman was able to prove her story.

In October, 1976 the Saskatoon Police Chief posted a memo, which is published in "Starlight Tour: The Last Lonely Night of Neil Stonechild," for all of his staff to see. It read: "Instead of charging the people with having liquor in a place other then a dwelling, the officer (forced) the said persons into a Police vehicle and (drove) them to a remote area outside the City Limits and (left) said individuals to walk back to the City, particularly a female who was then eight months pregnant."

According to the memo, officer denied the accusations, but was found guilty. He was "reprimanded" and fined $200.

Current Problems

Justice (25-42), sask. man at centre of historic ‘starlight tours’ police misconduct case has died.

Darrell Night spoke out after he was left by police to freeze outside Saskatoon in January 2000

CBC News : A man who spoke out more than 20 years ago after being taken on a “Starlight Tour” by Saskatoon police has died.

In January of 2000, Darrell Night was driven out of the city by two Saskatoon police officers and abandoned without winter clothing. He survived after a power plant worker heard him knocking on the door. The frozen bodies of two other Indigenous men — Rodney Naistus and Lawrence Wegner — were found around this time in the same area.

Night agreed to tell his story publicly and to an officer who agreed to pursue the case. It ignited a wave of firings, criminal charges and protests against a police practice known as Starlight Tours.

“He felt a deep empathy for the men who died. He felt that it was his responsibility to come forward,” said University of Alberta professor Tasha Hubbard, who featured Night in her film,  Two Worlds Colliding . “I think people should understand just how much courage that took for him to do that.”

Hubbard said it was only two decades ago, but attitudes were far different. Canadians were only beginning to listen to the stories of residential school survivors. Idle No More, Black Lives Matter and other movements didn’t exist. No one had cell phone recordings or posts on social media.

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Two officers were convicted in Night’s case. Investigations into the deaths of Naistus and Wegner were inconclusive. “He was essentially kidnapped, taken away and dropped off in the middle of an extremely cold winter night on the outskirts of Saskatoon. And having survived that trauma, he had nonetheless the wherewithal to to come forward with his story. He displayed some exceptional courage,” said Night’s former lawyer, Donald Worme.

Night died earlier this month at age 56. A wake and funeral were held at the Saulteaux First Nation located approximately 150 kilometres northwest of Saskatoon. The cause of death is not known.

Worme said the overt racism within the police force and the rest of society has diminished, but there’s still a lot of work to do combating institutional racism and other forms of injustice. “I think there’s no question that Darrell Night made a difference in the city of Saskatoon. His name is synonymous with pushback against police misconduct in this city,” Worme said.

“His passing is a sad day for, you know, not just for his family, but I think for those who who believe in the kind of justice that he advocated.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jason Warick

Jason Warick is a reporter with CBC Saskatoon.

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Starlight tours show anti-Indigenous racism in Canadian policing

The story of darrell night teaches us how to make a difference.

By Allie Stone | Image by Michele Melendez March 5, 2024

There are too many examples of the police mistreating the Indigenous people of Canada. There’s no way I can walk through them all in an article, but I can begin in Saskatoon, Sask. where Darrell Night survived the Starlight Tours.

Colloquially known as the Starlight Tours of western Canada, these are events where police pick up vulnerable Indigenous people, drive them out to remote areas on the outskirts of the city and leave them to find their own way back. These “tours” happen in the freezing temperatures of brutal Canadian winters where the victim has little to no weather appropriate clothing, often resulting in hypothermia.

A little over 24 years ago, Night was picked up by two local police officers, Dan Hatchen and Ken Munson, after leaving an apartment building while drunk and shouting. The officers picked him up, and he grew fearful, thinking of stories of rumoured Starlight Tours. With the temperature that evening being below 20 degrees Celsius, Night wasn’t prepared for the cold. He was only wearing a light jean jacket when the officers dropped him off, ignoring his pleas before finally driving off.

Night only survived was by knowing the area. He found his way to the nearby power plant and begged for someone to help him. Night shared his story when two other men were found frozen to death in the same area he had been dropped at. Night speaking out was a catalyst, raising questions of foul play in the case of Neil Stonechild, one of the victims.

Hatchen and Munson were convicted of unlawful confinement and served eight months, losing their positions and their pensions. While that sounds like a good enough punishment, they were still not punished for the ruthlessness of almost killing Night. The officers never even apologized.

Night created an uproar in January of 2000 by surviving the trauma that he was put through. He turned the public eye to the police, and he had the courage to speak on what happened to him and on behalf of the people before and after him who did not get the chance.

The relationship between Indigenous people in Canada and law enforcement has been poisoned by the actions of the police in these cases and many more. Night spent part of his life fighting for the rights of Indigenous people to live freely and not in fear of people who are supposed to protect our cities. Night started something so important and it has been passed to young people after his death, because if he is not going to be here anymore, more people need to step up to the plate.

What is something that Canadians can do to put a stop to the violence against Indigenous people and other people of colour? We need to realize that the police who are being violent are not just the “bad cops,” they are examples of what the system and our country not only allow, but have been built on.

There are a few ways that police officers can take advantage of their authority, from intimidation to use of excessive force — or what most people refer to as police brutality. This can come from poor police training, lack of repercussions in the system and racism.

According to an article from the Yellowhead Institute, some of the ways to mitigate police violence are government commitment to addressing the ways in which our system fails, gathering data on race-based demographics, and introducing groups such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Royal Commission of Aboriginal Peoples to oversee and recommend the changes that need to be made.

Lives are in danger right now, and there are things that people who want to help in a more immediate way can do on a community level. They can support victims and their families, donate or volunteer their time at Indigenous shelters and organizations, join in on community walks and, most importantly, stay informed.

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The Starlight Tours

After learning about the Saskatoon Freezing Deaths in history class, a bullied fifteen year old girl fights for her life when she is kidnapped by her classmates and left in the cold to freez... Read all After learning about the Saskatoon Freezing Deaths in history class, a bullied fifteen year old girl fights for her life when she is kidnapped by her classmates and left in the cold to freeze. After learning about the Saskatoon Freezing Deaths in history class, a bullied fifteen year old girl fights for her life when she is kidnapped by her classmates and left in the cold to freeze.

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Jenna : This killer doesn't need a gun or a knife. All he needs is a car and the cold. They call it a Starlight Tour.

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The Indigenous people killed by Canada’s police

The stories of Indigenous people who died in police encounters in Canada and the loved ones they left behind.

Despite making up just five percent of Canada’s population, 30 percent of the country’s prisoners are Indigenous. Across the prairie provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta – regions that have higher populations of Indigenous people – that number rises to 54 percent.

According to a 2017 CTV News analysis, an Indigenous person in Canada is more than 10 times more likely to be shot and killed by a police officer than a white person. Between 2017 and 2020, 25 Indigenous people were shot and killed by the RCMP, Canada’s federal and national police service.

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The latest case came on February 27, when Julian Jones, a 28-year-old Tla-o-qui-aht man, was shot and killed in British Columbia after Tofino police responded to a call for help from the Opitsaht reserve, which is accessible only by boat.

It was the second police killing of a Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation member in less than a year, following the death of Chantel Moore in June 2020.

Here are the stories of some of the Indigenous men and women who have been killed in encounters with Canadian police.

‘I want to get angel wings’ Chantel Moore, 26 – killed June 4, 2020

In the early hours of the morning on June 4, 2020, police in the New Brunswick city of Edmundston reportedly responded to a call from Chantel Moore’s boyfriend requesting a wellness check. Her boyfriend, who lived more than 1,000km (600 miles) away in Toronto, reportedly believed that Chantel was being harassed. The 26-year-old Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation member from British Columbia had recently moved to New Brunswick to be closer to her six-year-old daughter, who lived with Chantel’s mother.

A few minutes later, Chantel – who her family described as “a good mom”, someone who “made friends wherever she went” and “loved to make people laugh” – was dead.

According to the police, Chantel had walked out of her apartment onto a balcony with a knife and had threatened the officer, who then shot her.

“I don’t understand how someone dies during a wellness check,” Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller said at a news conference following Chantel’s death.

After Chantel’s body was returned to British Columbia, her maternal grandmother, Grace Frank, and her mother, Martha Martin, went to view it.

“Her face was bruised, her right eye sunk in. She had seven gunshot wounds on her body and her left leg wasn’t attached below the kneecap,” Grace recalled tearfully, adding that the police had not offered any explanation for the condition of her body.

The family wanted to protect Chantel’s daughter, Gracie – named after her great-grandmother – from learning how her mother died, but the six-year-old accidentally saw a news report about it on TV. Her great-grandmother says it left her devastated: “Gracie is so sad. She says, ‘I want to get angel wings. I want to go see my mom.’ And then she’s scared and cries, ‘I don’t wanna be shot like that, I don’t wanna die like that.'”

Grace remembered how Chantel would go out of her way to give her daughter the best Christmases and birthdays she could, adding: “Chantel was such a good mommy.”

“[She] was the kindest, [most] caring, loving, supportive, bubbly person. She never had hate for anyone. People loved her.”

When asked about the condition of Chantel’s body, Mychèle Poitras, communications director for the City of Edmundston, said: “No comments can be made since the file is with the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office.”

The name of the officer who shot Chantel has not been released, but eight investigators with Quebec’s independent police watchdog group (New Brunswick does not have its own) have completed an investigation into her death. The Bureau des enquetes independantes forwarded its report to New Brunswick’s Public Prosecution Service and to the case coroner in December. The prosecutions office has said it will review the report and determine whether to charge the officer.

The Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation is demanding that the officer be charged with murder and that body cameras be mandatory for all police officers working with the public. It has also requested a full national inquiry into the root causes of police brutality against Indigenous people.

“This killing was completely senseless,” the Nation said in a press release. “At the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry, RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki committed to do better by First Nations. She said, ‘I’m sorry that for too many of you, the RCMP was not the police service that it needed to be during this terrible time in your life. It is very clear to me that the RCMP could have done better and I promise to you we will do better.’ We are still waiting for ‘better’ and Chantel certainly deserved ‘better.’”

In mid-November, less than six months after Chantel’s death, her 23-year-old brother Mike Martin took his own life while being held in a correctional centre in British Columbia. “I’m trying to be OK but I’m sad,” wrote Grace in a social media post in December. “I’m hurting. I’m angry. I’m full of rage. I’m full of disgust. I think about my granddaughter and my grandson – they should both be alive. It’s so unfair they’re gone … I will not give up until justice is served. My heart is aching.”

The ‘starlight tours’ Neil Stonechild, 17 – killed November 1990

On the golden, wheat-covered prairies of Saskatchewan, a deadly phenomenon known as the “starlight tours” has been threatening Indigenous people for decades.

No one here is certain where or when the term originated, but Indigenous residents know exactly what it stands for: police taking Indigenous people – often said to have been picked up while intoxicated – and dropping them off at the edge of the city of Saskatoon at night, where temperatures regularly drop to as low as -28C (-20F) during winter.

In November 1990, a 17-year-old Saulteaux First Nations boy was found frozen to death in a field on the outskirts of Saskatoon. Neil Stonechild was face down in the snow, wearing one shoe, and had cut marks on his face and arms. He was found by construction workers on November 29 – five days after he was last seen.

An autopsy indicated that he had died of hypothermia. But his devastated family suspected foul play.

A police investigation into his death was closed after just three days. Former Saskatoon police Sergeant Keith Jarvis, who conducted the investigation, explained in his report: “It is felt that unless something concrete by way of evidence to the contrary is obtained, the deceased died from exposure and froze to death.”

At the time of his death, Neil was living between a group home – accommodation that houses multiple children and young people in the foster care system – in the west end of Saskatoon and his mother’s house.

According to his older brother, Dean Lindgren, who is now 54, Neil was a “good kid” who dabbled in “petty crime” but was not involved in violent crime or gangs.

The night Neil died he was wearing his brother’s high school letterman jacket. It was, Dean remembered, one of his most prized possessions. “For a long time he kept asking me, ‘Bro, can I have your jacket?’” said Dean, who finally relented and gave it to his brother, who wore it “proudly” around Saskatoon.

Neil was an athlete, who excelled at wrestling, Dean recalled.

The two brothers had a strong bond, even though they had only known each other for two-and-a-half years when Neil died. Dean had been taken from his family as part of the “60s scoop”, a practice enacted by provincial and federal Canadian governments from the 1960s to the 1980s in which Indigenous children were taken from their families and adopted by white families across Canada and the US.

After finishing high school, Dean travelled from his adoptive home in Minnesota in the US to find his biological family in Saskatoon. He immediately bonded with his younger brother and said that the week before he died, the two brothers had planned to travel to the province of Ontario to pick up a car Dean had bought and drive it back to Saskatoon together.

“He wanted to come so bad,” Dean said of his brother. But in the end, Dean went alone. “I kick myself every time I talk about this,” he said.

Driving back to Saskatoon, Dean hit black ice and destroyed his new car. He borrowed a stranger’s phone to call home. The US Army veteran breaks down in tears as he describes what happened next.

“I called my cousin Andrea. I was frantic about my car. But she asked me, ‘Are you sitting down?… Dean, your brother was killed.’”

His world momentarily stopped. Then the words hit him – hard. He took a bus back to Saskatoon.

Dean remembers hearing that Neil was with his 16-year-old friend Jason Roy the night he went missing. But, for 10 years, Jason did not talk about what happened that night. He later explained in a phone call from his home in Saskatoon that he had been traumatised and scared of potential repercussions for speaking out.

Then, on January 19, 2000, Lloyd Dustyhorn, a 53-year-old First Nations man was found frozen to death in Saskatoon. The day before he had been taken into custody by police for public intoxication – in May 2001, following an inquest, a jury decided that his death had been caused by hypothermia.

Later that month, Darryl Night, a Cree man from Saskatoon, told police that two officers had dropped him off several miles outside of Saskatoon in freezing temperatures. Darryl had been having a drunken argument with his uncle and said the officers picked him up outside his uncle’s apartment before dawn on January 28. He was wearing only a T-shirt and running shoes when they left him in a remote rural area outside the city. He managed to walk several miles to a power station where a watchman let him call a taxi.

The next day, the shirtless body of Rodney Naistus, a 25-year-old Indigenous man, was found near where Darryl said the police officers had dropped him off. A few days later, on February 3, 2000, the body of another Indigenous man, 30-year-old Lawrence Kim Wegner, who had last been seen three days earlier, was found wearing only a T-shirt, socks and jeans. Both men appeared to have frozen to death, possibly dying within hours of being released from police custody, according to police investigations and public inquests.

These cases prompted the Province of Saskatchewan to hold an inquiry into the alleged “starlight tours” and to re-examine Neil’s death.

Jason testified at the inquiry, telling it about the last time he had seen his friend alive on that bitterly cold November night in 1990. He and Neil had been walking in the city’s west end after drinking at an apartment building in the area, he said. The two briefly separated, Jason recalled, and the next time he saw Neil he was in the backseat of a police cruiser, with a bloodied face, screaming for help and telling Jason: “They’re going to kill me.”

The inquiry found that Neil was in the custody of police Constables Larry Hartwig and Bradley Senger and that the injuries and marks to his body “were likely caused by handcuffs.” The officers denied having been in contact with Neil the night he died, but the evidence contradicted their claim and the two were dismissed from duty in November 2004. A court upheld the findings of the inquiry when the two officers appealed against it.

Despite this, no Saskatoon police officer has been tried for Neil’s death or those of any of the other Indigenous people who froze to death.

Today, Dean says he harbours hatred for the officers he believes took the life of his brother. “I will never forgive Hartwig and Senger, never,” he said, angrily.

When George Floyd was killed by US police in Minneapolis, Dean said it stirred up memories. “I understand exactly what the family (George Floyd’s) is going through,” he said. “When I saw the cops killing George Floyd on the video, I had instant rage. Down here it’s not safe for the Blacks and up in Canada it’s bad for the Natives.”

Back in Saskatoon, Jason is working to overcome the trauma of the last time he saw his friend. He wants the police to implement the recommendations of the inquiry into his friend’s death, which included cultural and sensitivity training to equip police to deal with high-stress situations involving Indigenous people who are often dealing with trauma as a result of generations of abuse, neglect and discrimination.

“The police have only found different ways to abuse our people. My people are still being abused,” he said. “But I’m not scared of them – there is no way I was going to let them win.”

‘His life was only worth 20 minutes of their time’ Rodney Levi, 48 – killed June 12, 2020

Eight days after the death of Chantel Moore, 48-year-old Rodney Levi, a Metepenagiag Mi’kmaq man, was killed in the same province.

Late in the afternoon of June 12, the Sunny Corner RCMP Detachment reportedly received a call about a man acting strangely at a home near the Metepenagiag First Nation.

According to a report by the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes du Québec when police arrived at the scene, Rodney was armed with knives and charged at one of the two officers. A taser was deployed three times but failed to subdue him. One of the officers shot Rodney twice in the chest. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Investigators from the Bureau interviewed witnesses, one of whom described Rodney as “being severely depressed” in the days before his death and as having talked about “suicide by RCMP”.

Rodney’s brother-in-law, Norman Ward, told Al Jazeera the father-of three had battled “demons” in the form of drug addiction but added that he did not believe he posed a threat to anyone.

“With Rodney gone, a big piece is missing as he always brought everyone together,” he said. “Things will never be the same with him gone. He didn’t die of natural causes. His life was stolen, not just from him but from everyone who loved him.”

Norman described him as having a way with people, especially children. “All his nieces and nephews looked up to him. He went out of his way to play with them. He was like a big kid.”

According to Lisa Levi, Rodney’s sister, he had been attending a BBQ at the home of his pastor from the Boom Road Pentecostal Church – a church he had been attending on and off for approximately three years – when he was shot by police on the back deck.

“From what I understand, Rodney was invited by Pastor Brodie [MacLeod] to have supper with the family. They all knew Rodney and loved him. Some time during the time he was there Rodney became paranoid and had put a knife in his hoodie pocket for protection. Someone (we’re not sure who) called the police,” Lisa explained.

Pastor Brodie MacLeod released a statement after Rodney’s death to dispel the rumours that he had been an “unwanted guest”. “Rodney Levi was a welcomed guest at our home and he attended our residence when he shared a meal with my family and I on Friday evening,” he wrote.

Lisa said Rodney had been trying for several months to get psychiatric help but had been denied admission for treatment at the local hospital.

The police spoke to Rodney for 20 minutes before he was shot. “That officer showed up, knew Rodney was Indigenous and decided that Rodney was not worth the effort to talk to. Because the very next week, a white guy at the Miramichi hospital held a nurse at knifepoint. They gave that man a hostage negotiator and hours to talk him down. Our Rodney was given 20 minutes! That’s the hardest part – knowing Rodney’s life was only worth 20 minutes of their time,” said Lisa.

“I wonder, did he suffer and was he scared?” she said, crying.

Lisa says she now experiences anxiety when driving outside of her community. “A week after Rodney was killed, I was driving down the highway and a cop pulled out behind me. I was sweating, started to get anxious. Even though my vehicle was insured and registered, I didn’t feel safe because I’m Indigenous.”

Her children, aged 7, 13 and 14, are also afraid, she adds. “They know how their uncle was. He was so nice, so gentle. Never violent. It makes me cry. I want to protect my kids to not have to go through this, but racism is still here.”

Norman is convinced Rodney would still be alive if he were white. “The whole justice system is against us,” he said. “There’s so much racism in this area. They (police) beat up our people. All they want to do is arrest us and be aggressive to us. There is still so much tension here since Rodney died.”

The RCMP is not currently commenting on Rodney’s death as the case is being reviewed by the New Brunswick Prosecution Service.

‘She was a kid’ Eishia Hudson, 16 – killed April 8, 2020

On April 8, 2020, police in Winnipeg, Manitoba, shot and killed Eishia Hudson, a 16-year-old First Nations girl. Police say they received a report that a group of teenagers had robbed a liquor store in the Sage Creek area. Within minutes, several police vehicles were chasing the stolen SUV the teenagers were in.

The pursuit came to an end when the police cars blocked in the SUV and an officer shot Eishia, who had been driving the stolen SUV. She was transported to hospital but succumbed to her injuries.

The night Eishia was killed, her father, William Hudson, got a call from one of his other daughters expressing concern about Eishia. He went out looking for her.

“I went around to every hospital and called all the police stations,” he said. “No one told me anything.”

A little later, he heard the news from one of his other daughters.

“It’s tough. It’s unbelievable. It’s still hard for me to believe,” he said.

Just 12 hours later, one of his closest friends, 36-year-old Indigenous father-of-three Jason Collins, had been shot and killed by Winnipeg police officers responding to a domestic violence call.

Of his daughter, William said, “[she had a smile] so bright it didn’t matter how you were feeling or what you were going through, she brought brightness to anyone she was around. She had a positive attitude towards everything”.

He says Eishia was not a troublemaker and describes her as a happy person who loved to play sports and make people laugh.

“I enjoyed laughing with her, listening to her sing, watching her play sports. Every moment I had with Eishia is my favourite memory of her.”

He believes racism played a role in her death.

“It’s hard to be Indigenous in Canada. Where I grew up here in the north end, it’s lower-income, there’s gangs. We grew up with racist cops and a racist child welfare system,” William explained.

The family held a funeral for Eishia in April amid COVID-19 lockdowns. William says hundreds of people turned up at the funeral home to pay their respects before she was cremated but only 10 could be ushered through at a time.

The family says it is waiting to get answers from the police about why other tactics were not used to apprehend her before burying her remains.

William says Winnipeg’s Indigenous community has been a great source of support for him. He has organised multiple rallies and vigils for Eishia, which he says helps to make him feel as though he is not carrying the load of her loss alone. But, he says, neither the police nor the city or provincial authorities have reached out to him.

His younger children are afraid to leave the house since Eishia died, he explained, adding that whenever he takes his five-year-old daughter to the local grocery store, she grabs his leg if she sees a police officer on patrol.

“For us, when we leave the house, we know we’re leaving as an Indigenous person. To be on guard. I hope one day it will change.”

Following an investigation into Eisha’s death, Manitoba’s Independent Investigation Unit (IIU) concluded that there was no evidence the officer had been unjustified in using lethal force. William dismissed the report as “biased”.

“My daughter, her life mattered. She was a kid and what the cops did, that was wrong,” William said, adding: “It has to come to an end.”

‘My sunshine girl’ Josephine Pelletier, 33 – killed May 17, 2018

Josephine Pelletier was shot dead by police in Calgary, Alberta, on May 17, 2018. The 33-year-old Cree woman was with her 18 year-old-son Elijah, and according to police, was barricaded in the basement of a residence that was not her home.

“I had a strange feeling about Josephine and her boy [around the time she was killed],” Josephine’s mother, Donna Pelletier, explained during a phone call from her home in Saskatchewan.

Family friends called to tell her the news after learning of Josephine’s death on social media.

“I said, ‘If this is about Josephine, I don’t want to hear it.’ Everything went blank after that,” she recalled.

Josephine had attended one of Canada’s last residential schools – which closed in 1996. In an interview before her death, she had described to this writer the relentless verbal, physical and sexual abuse she had endured there.

Canada’s federal residential school system, which started in 1883, forcibly removed Indigenous children from their families, communities and cultures.

After leaving school, Josephine spent much of her life in jail. But, in 2015, she had reached out to the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) from a half-way house in Calgary to share her story and plead for help. “I need help,” she told the channel. “How to learn to unlock my mind from being an angry person. From being locked up all the time and fighting. I want to be in control of my mind, feelings, my heart and my body. I want to be a mom. I want to give my son something to look at and be proud of.”

Josephine had been on the run from a Calgary half-way house for a couple of days when the upstairs occupants of the residence where she was killed called the police to report a home invasion. Police arrived with a K9 unit and a tactical team. According to news reports, police officers heard sounds of distress from inside and two officers fired live rounds at Josephine, who was unarmed. She died on the scene.

Police also shot Elijah with rubber bullets, rendering him unconscious. To this day, Donna says, he has no recollection of his mother’s death.

About a week and a half after Josephine was killed, Donna had raised enough money through an online appeal to be able to bring her daughter’s body home to Saskatchewan.

“They didn’t wipe her up. There was still blood on her body. There was a bullet by her ear, one on the back of her head, one on her arm – she must have put her arms up. I saw three bullets, but then I couldn’t look any more,” she explained.

Josephine was buried in the Muskowekwan First Nation that June. Elijah could not attend the funeral because he was in jail facing various charges related to the incident on the day of his mother’s death. A court subsequently ordered that he be admitted to a psychiatric hospital, where he remains today.

“They found him hanging at the Edmonton Remand Center,” said Donna of her now 20-year-old grandson. “It was the third time he tried to commit suicide.”

She described Elijah as smart, quiet, but quick-tempered, like his mother. “But now, they keep him drugged up, he doesn’t sound like himself.”

Donna says she has been left with unanswered questions. “They (police) won’t give me answers. They keep giving me the run-around.”

When she visits Josephine’s grave, the pain is still fresh. Although her daughter lived a troubled life, Donna says she now likes to imagine that her “sunshine girl” is at peace with the angels.

Josephine’s death is currently under investigation by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT). The ASIRT told Al Jazeera by email that it is unsure when a decision will be made regarding the actions of police in Josephine’s death.

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Starlight tour allegation against Saskatoon police unfounded: PCC

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This article is more than 5 years old and some information may not be up to date.

Allegations made by a man that Saskatoon police officers drove him out of town on a “ starlight tour ” have been determined to be unfounded by the Provincial Complaints Commission (PCC).

Ken Thomas said he was picked up by two officers on April 21 when he stepped outside a bar to have a cigarette.

He said the officers told him he fit the description of someone who had been digging into vehicles.

Thomas said he was detained and then driven south of the city where he was dropped off.

He said he ran back home to keep warm.

The Saskatoon Police Service (SPS) said they would co-operate with the PCC and turned over GPS logs as part of the investigation.

SPS Chief Troy Cooper said on Tuesday, the PCC investigation found there had been no contact between Thomas and police on the night in question.

“Our service co-operated fully with the investigation from its inception, and assisted by providing logs of GPS for our fleet as well as video and audio recordings which are automatically activated in all our cars,” Cooper said in a statement.

“This information was undoubtedly very useful in proving that there was no contact between the SPS and Mr. Thomas on April 21st.”

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Global News has attempted to contact Thomas for comment but have not been able to reach him at the time this story was published.

Cooper said this is the first complaint of this nature since he became chief, and the seventh allegation since 2012.

None of the allegations were proven, Cooper said, and in two of the cases, mischief charges were laid.

He said the force takes all allegations seriously.

“Our police service currently enjoys very high levels of public trust but we do not take that for granted,” Cooper said.

“We take these allegations incredibly seriously and we know that we must address them as quickly as possible while reassuring people that our members are doing their best to serve the community.”

WATCH: Dave Scott calls for review into Neil Stonechild inquiry

In 1990, the frozen body of 17-year-old Neil Stonechild was found outside Saskatoon city limits.

An RCMP inquiry into Stonechild’s death showed the teen was in police custody before he died. Two officers involved were fired following the inquiry.

— With files from The Canadian Press

• Agency clears Saskatoon police of starlight tour
• Man suing 2 Regina police officers for alleged assault

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’Starlight Express’ Review: Wobbly Revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Roller-Skating Musical Never Hits Stride

By David Benedict

David Benedict

• ‘Alma Mater’ Review: A Timely if Overplotted Drama About Feminism and Academia 3 days ago
• ’Starlight Express’ Review: Wobbly Revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Roller-Skating Musical Never Hits Stride 1 week ago
• ‘The Constituent’ Review: James Corden Impresses in Timely but Contrived Political Play 2 weeks ago

Is it a musical? Is it a roller derby? Is it a game-show? When the roller-skating phenomenon that is “ Starlight Express ” opened in London in 1984 it was all of those and more, as evidenced by its 18-year run. It lasted just 22 months on Broadway but in a uniquely created theater in Bochum, Germany, it has just entered its 37th year. Might North London’s much-vaunted new version in a specifically rebuilt theater emulate that success? Hope springs eternal, but given Luke Sheppard’s surprisingly strained and only intermittently exciting production, it’s going to need a massive marketing spend.

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What Sheppard provides is pizzazz. Wearing trackers that synch with the lighting, sound and video, the ever-exhilarated skaters zip winningly from set designer Tim Hatley’s circular central space up ramps, around, amid and through the auditorium. Troublingly though, the auditorium layout is such that it’s tricky to work out who is leading the races. Information is flashed up on video screens atop the acting space and on either side of the auditorium, but they are oddly small and don’t command attention and watching them means audience focus is often split. On the considerable plus side, the command of the eye-widening tech meshing sound, visuals and movement is dazzling. 

The production’s major change is that while originally the racing trains were commanded into action by an unseen booming voice-over, now, the pre-teen young boy, Control (Christian Buttaci at the performance reviewed) whose dream the show is, now runs things. This makes narrative sense but his high-pitched yelling is more endearing than propulsive. And it couldn’t be more ironic that in a show wholly about rivals fiercely racing to win, the missing elements are momentum and tension. There are individual thrills, but nothing accumulates. Part of that is because the characters are wafer-thin. The daredevil dedication of the quadruple-threat performers – singing, acting, dancing and skating – is unquestionably admirable but you begin to long for more, well, personality. Tall, arch Electra, the electric train, promises to add very welcome camp into the proceedings but Tim Pigram is stymied because although his unexpectedly pointy inflatable costume (by Gabriella Slade) gets laughs, his dialogue falls short of the queeny promise. Eve Humphrey’s perky dining car Dinah is delightfully precise, but the production’s rush to get to the next race militates against stronger work from pretty much everyone. Musically, the new songs add little. A blues number for Momma is character-appropriate but, like the score’s weaker moments, sadly generic.  The highpoint is the ultimate singing of the oft-repeated, lovely and hauntingly hopeful title song. Suddenly, everything calms down as Rusty (Jeevan Braich, in his professional debut) sings sweetly into the darkness. Sound designer Gareth Owen gives Laura Bangay’s top-flight band evocative, echoey reverb and the whole design team fly in individual glowing stars against a ceiling filled with shimmering pin-pricks of light. It’s restrained and magical.

But is a moment of tender stillness the best advert for a show that should be all about pulse-quickening excitement? 

Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre, London; 1,017 seats; £110 ($139) top, £195 ($247) premium top. Opened, 30 Jun, 2024; reviewed, June 27. Running time: 2 HOURS, 20 MIN

• Production: A Michael Harrison for Lloyd Webber Harrison Musicals, David & Hannah Mirvish, Gavin Kalin Productions, 42nd Club, Jonathan Feder & Marty Dodge, by arrangement with The Really Useful Group Limited, presentation of a musical in two acts, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Richard Stilgoe, creative dramaturg, Arlene Phillips.
• Crew: Directed by Luke Sheppard; choreography, Ashley Nottingham; musical supervision by Matthew Brind and David Andrew Wilson. Sets, Tim Hatley; costumes, Gabriella Slade; video, Andrzej Goulding; lighting, Howard Hudson; sound, Gareth Owen; musical director, Laura Bangay; orchestrations, Matthew Brind with Andrew Lloyd Webber; production stage manager, Matt Watkins.
• Cast: Jeevan Braich, Kayna Montecillo, Jade Marvin, Al Knott, Eve Humphrey, Tom Pigram, Christian Buttaci, Jamie Addison, Ollie Augustin, Renz Cardenas, Catherine Cornwall, Asher Forth, Pablo Gómez Jones, Lilianna Hendy, Dante Hutchinson, Lewis Kidd, Oscar Kong, Emily Martinez, Deearna Mclean, Marianthe Panas, David Peter-Brown, Harrison Peterkin, Ashley Rowe, Charlie Russell, Jessica Vaux, Jaydon Vijn, Ashlyn Weekes.

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‘Starlight Express’ Review: The Gravy Train Rolls On

Nostalgia will undoubtedly lure many to a London revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. It has more in common with a theme park than with theater, our critic writes.

By Houman Barekat

The critic Houman Barekat saw the show in London.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s baffling musical, “Starlight Express” — in which trains, represented by performers on roller skates, compete in a championship at the behest of a little boy who is dreaming the whole thing — was a big West End hit in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Forty years after its 1984 premiere, it returns with a new production, this time in a purpose-built auditorium about 10 miles west of the theater district.

This “Starlight Express,” directed by Luke Sheppard and running through Feb. 16, 2025, channels heady nostalgia for the recent past. The set design and sound effects are redolent of ‘90s video games and British TV game shows like “ Gladiators ”; the glittery, sci-fi costumes are reminiscent of “Power Rangers.” The show is a dazzlingly produced family entertainment with impressive special effects, but its appeal consists almost entirely in sensory overload rather than plot, music or drama.

Our unlikely hero, the steam engine Rusty (Jeevan Braich), is initially intimidated by his competitors, the electric and diesel trains Electra (Tom Pigram) and Greaseball (Al Knott). Rusty’s got hots for a railroad car called Pearl (Kayna Montecillo), but she’s not sure if she likes him in that way. After several setbacks and some soul-searching, he teams up with a hydrogen engine, Hydra (Jaydon Vijn), to win both the race and the girl. Essentially it’s “The Karate Kid,” with trains.

A talented cast do their best to breathe life into this somewhat unoriginal tale. Branch plays Rusty with just the right blend of halting self-doubt and plucky determination, and the baddies are rendered with cartoonish bravado. But the real star of the show is Tim Hatley’s spectacular set, with its racing track that snakes out from the stage into the audience seating, so that the performers occasionally zoom right through, complemented by an array of incredibly slick visuals: steam jets, flame effects, laser beams.

Lloyd Webber’s music is a mélange of upbeat ‘80s pop, punctuated by several ballads and a rap number. They sound more derivative than the songs in his other shows: One melody is strikingly similar to ABBA’s “Lay All Your Love on Me”; another sounds uncannily like “Cars” by Gary Numan. Since the original musical was criticized as portraying female rail cars in a sexist way , this revival has been amended to feature an empowering number entitled “I Am Me,” first introduced in a 2018 German production, in which those carriages remind us that they aren’t defined by their attachment to any particular engine — moreover, they are integral to the proper functioning of a transportation system. (“Without us, you don’t get no fares.”)

How can something so bonkers come across as so drab? The best family entertainment appeals not only to children’s imaginative whimsy but also to their intellect. But “Starlight Express” has no recognizable point of connection with any aspect of real human existence.

That needn’t stand in the way of commercial success. There is, of course, a large audience for maximalist kitsch, as the enduring popularity of the Eurovision Song Contest attests. There is also the question of the target audience. In the interests of journalistic rigor, I took a 6-year-old with me to the show. It’s fair to say he was transfixed and delighted by the special effects — and on these terms at least, the show can be said to be a triumph — although subsequent interrogations revealed he was a little muddled about the story. But “Starlight Express” is more theme park than theater. It’s Legoland for the stage.

In his playbill notes, Lloyd Webber recalls how the show was originally inspired by his love of the “Thomas the Tank Engine” children’s books. But the connection between that inspiration and the end product was always rather tenuous and abstract. A human being representing a train doesn’t have quite the same irresistible charm as an animated, anthropomorphized machine. That this musical ever became such a huge hit is one of the great mysteries of modern showbiz. Maybe it had something to do with the roller skating boom of the ‘80s, when wheeled boots felt zeitgeisty in a way that’s hard to imagine now.

Today, “Starlight Express” takes its place on the nostalgia circuit, where questions of artistic merit are secondary to vibes. On social media this week, British theatergoers who saw the show as children in the ‘80s have been posting excitedly about their plans to take their own kids to see this new production. The gravy train rolls on; full steam ahead.

Starlight Express

Through Feb. 16, 2025 at the Troubadour Wembley Park Theater; starlightexpresslondon.com .

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