Eastern Door Volume 6 Number 34

Volume 6 Number 34

September 26, 1997

Raid Nets Machine Gun
By: Kenneth Deer

On Tuesday, an RCMP Intervention Team arrested John Patrick "Butch" Stacey, 54 behind Bully's Truck Stop on charges of gun trafficking. He was arrested along with Jean Chaput, 47, of LaSalle who was about to purchase a machine gun from Stacey.

A .30 calibre Browning machine gun with tripod and 2,000 rounds of ammunition was found in the Nissan Pathfinder driven by Stacey.

Police had earlier arrested John Lewis "Jake" Doxtator on Monday in front of the Maxi store in Chateauguay. Doxtator, from Oneida, Ont. but living in Kahnawake, was charged with similar counts of gun trafficking. Also arrested on Tuesday were Christian Gouger, 22, of St-Felix-De-Valois and Yves Rollin, 39, of Montreal.

The operation, called Project Chevreau, began in February, 1996, with the investigation of Chaput who the police suspected of dealing in arms. He also was involved in the collection of debts and extortion. According to police, Chaput was selling the guns to his customers who included the Hell's Angels, the Rock Machine or any other criminal element who had the money. He bragged that he could get anything anyone wanted.

Further investigation led the RCMP to Stacey and Doxtator, who were Chaput's main suppliers of guns. Stacey and Doxtator worked independly of one another. An undercover officer began ordering guns from Chaput and bought 11 guns from him before his arrest.

The RCMP knew for days that the sale would take place at Bully's Truck Stop. It was a common meeting place for the transactions. Chaput was always present when the sale took place and would not let his customers meet Stacey or Doxtator unless he was present.

At this particular sale, the undercover operator was offered a machine gun by Chaput ordered from Stacey. They agreed on the price, $12,500, and arranged to meet at the "same time, same place."

At Noon on Tuesday, September 23, Stacey in his Nissan and Chaput in a van were waiting behind Bully's Truck Stop. Fifteen RCMP of officers moved in with four vehicles; two suburbans, one van and a four wheel drive jeep. A six man Intervention Team, similar to a SWAT unit, with helmet mounted radios and heavily armed, carried out the arrests.

They seized the machine gun and ammunition from the back of the Nissan Pathfinder and arrested Stacey and Chaput. The undercover agent was not at the scene but in the general area.

The police immediately left the area and the whole operation took less than five minutes.

The Kahnawake Peacekeepers were not present and were not notified of the raid until after it was over.

Several weapons sold

Besides the .30 caliber Browning machine gun, Stacey sold to Chaput over the course of the investigation two MG 34 machine guns with ammunition, two.233 caliber AR15 rifles, on Norinco AK47 semi-automatic rifle and one Heckler-Koch HK94 9mm rifle. From Doxtator, Chaput bought one intratec .45 semi-automatic pistol, one Taurus 9mm pistol, one 380 semi-automatic pistol and one AK47 rifle.

Through wiretaps, the police know that at least 75 other guns were sold but they don't know to who.

Police have traced some of the guns to thefts in the state of Maine, tow of the AK47s were stolen in Montreal in 1990 and the other small guns had their serial numbers drilled out. The police have not yet found out where the machine guns came from.

Six ounces of 75 percent Forcite dynamite were sold to the undercover agent by Chaput but were not supplied by Stacey or Doxtator.

Charges laid

Stacey and Doxtator are charged with conspiracy to sell restricted and prohibited weapons, possession of restricted and prohibited weapons and extortion. They are also charged with conspiracy to traffic in controlled drugs, namely Quaaludes and Valium.

Doxtator also has three other outstanding charges relating to weapons charges in London, Ontario and defaulted on a $5,000 bond on a weapons charge in Ottawa. Also, according to police, Doxtator was conspiring with Chaput to put C4 explosives on the market.

Chaput has similar charges including possession of stolen goods, traffic in controlled drugs, extortion and making threats.

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Survival School Protest
By: Tom Dearhouse

Kahnawake Survival School students, staff, parents and concerned residents numbering over 200, walked from the Kahnawake Survival School to the Mohawk Council Monday afternoon in protest of the planned Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) project to be situated on the northern boundary of the school.

The KSS students and parents met last Thursday night with MCK reps and ADM consultants to share their concerns. A lingering thought on peoples, minds is a deadline date of October 6, the end of a public review period of a required environmental assessment, after which a final agreement between ADM and MCK can be signed.

On Friday, the KSS students met in the afternoon and decided to hold a march to protest the ADM project. The Principal, Russel Curotte had students take permission slips home for the parents to sign before they could take part in the protest. The students made placards on Friday night at the Longhouse.

The MCK met with the student council on Monday morning before the demonstration. The students sat in their clans and the meeting was held in a very traditional manner. Everyone was smudged before the meeting began. The students had questions for the MCK and listened to their answers. In the end, the MCK was very impressed by the manner in which the students conducted themselves.

The demonstration began with a tobacco burning at 12:30 p.m. and the march to the MCK offices began directly after.

KSS has a student council arranged with students holding positions of clan mothers and chiefs. Pamela Stacey, grade 11 student, and Turtle clan mother, said, "We want to make everybody aware of ADM and how the students are opposed to be surrounded by it and the other industries."

A battery plant, scrapyard and railroad tracks servicing these companies are adjacent to the school.

"We don't want pollution in the environment," said Erin Montour, grade 7 student and council secretary. "We want to send our kids to a clean school in the future."

Upon arriving at Council office, Stacey presented to Grand Chief Joe Norton a letter from the student council stating their concerns, and a long scroll of over 200 signatures. She Said, "We have come to one mind against this project."

Placeards with slogans, for example, "ADM - another damn mess" were placed around the Council building.

Joe Norton later said, "I appreciate how the men and women came to give a message of their dissatisfaction to the project. And the meeting we had was very well needed. We agreed to disagree, which is the reality of Kahnawake, nothing is 100 percent, and we have sound recommendations for our next meeting, we are prepared to meet again."

The meeting couldn't address all the questions the students had. Norton said if the school is asking for a delay to break ground, there is the possibility of some breathing room.

Montour hoped the protest march would lead to a chance the project be moved elsewhere because "the Earth is no more good", referring to a slow buildup of lead contamination from existing industries.

Some students thought the meeting with most of the MCK chiefs prior to the march would result in a scrap of the march, "just to appease MCK," said one student, but this was not the case.

Both sides listened to one another, and according to Russel Curotte, KSS principal, the meeting was diplomatic, and the march itself was signified.

Curotte said, "It was the start of a respectful dialogue, for the students to lodge a complaint; maybe we didn't get all the answers, but it was another step to get something done."

Norton added the students deserve credit and praise for their conduct throughout, not to heed outside influences/agitators, and said it was, "A tribute to their commitment."

Another meeting between MCK and KSS students will take place within the next two weeks.

The community has various opinions about the ADM project. One observer of the march said the project would be taking advantage to the seaway and previously unused land.

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Editorial

Some thoughts about the RCMP, criminals and Kahnawake
By: Kenneth Deer - The Eastern Door

The spotlight continues to shine on Kahnawake as another tow accused criminals are arrested by the RCMP. While the people recently arrested languish in jail, the public focuses on the community of Kahnawake.

And what does this light show?

By seeing what is in the mainstream media, one could get the impression that Kahnawake ifs rife with criminals and a police force that is more apt at protecting these criminals and a police force that is more apt at protecting these criminals than at prosecuting them.

This is, of course, a distorted image. Kahnawake has its share of criminals, true, but in no greater proportion that the dominant society around us. So what is all the fuss about?

Two reasons come to mind. First, there is a deliberate campaign by elements in the RCMP, and by extension the government, to discredit the Peacekeepers and the community at large by highlighting certain criminal activities and exposing our alleged susceptibility to that activity. It is curious that the problem area is the Customs and Excise Section of the RCMP who have the responsibility to enforce the laws against contraband cigarettes. Is there a larger strategy by the RCMP to shut down the cigarette industry in Kahnawake, sweeping the Peacekeepers aside, or a door to door search for guns and contraband?

The second reason maybe less directed at Kahnawake and more at the SQ. The provincial government has been trying to push the RCMP out of Quebec and take over all aspects of law enforcement. The RCMP may be using Kahnawake to show that they are still needed here because they can do things that Quebec might not be able to do.

Of course, this whole episode might just be tempest in a teapot, but you always have to look for the strings behind the puppets.

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Is there an attitude in Kahnawake that tolerates criminal activity?

Do we condone people who deal in stolen goods and actually buy from them? do we laugh with, and encourage people who brag about their illegal activities? Have we become indifferent to the application of laws?

These are hard questions we have to ask ourselves and if we answer yes to any one of them, then we are part of the problem.

Not everyone in Kahnawake is a criminal. As a matter of fact there are very few. But even those few are too many, particularly if they put the peace and safety of Kahnawake at risk.

But why do so many people know about these few criminal activities and not do anything about them? Is it because we accept the trade in cigarettes and alcohol as a political manifestation, that we have allowed ourselves to become immune to other, less desirable commodities such as stolen goods, guns and drugs?

Outside police forces are taking action because internally, as a society, we are not. We have become complacent into believing that repressing criminal activity is the responsibility of someone else and not ours. This attitude may have lowered our moral standards and made us dependent on other powers. We have to change our attitude towards criminal activity; and if we don't someone else will.

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Keeping peace in our community is the responsibility of everyone. In today's day and age police are necessary in a complex world of laws and courts. However, our collective is made up of individuals, and as individuals, we each have to pull our own weight to make this a better society.

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