Merritt woman urges RCMP to take online reports seriously after attempted abduction

Content warning: This report contains content some people may find disturbing. Discretion is advised.

MERRITT (NEWS 1130) – An Indigenous woman in Merritt is coming forward with a horrifying and recent account of what may have been an attempted abduction last month.

She says it happened on Jan. 14 at about 9:30 p.m. Danielle Jack was walking just two blocks to her car when the only other person on the sidewalk — a tall man — blocked her from passing by. In that moment, she remembers a red van pulling up slowly and the rear door opening.

“And the guy in the back was the one that was actually like really, really trying to, like, grab me and get a hold of me. And while the one on the street just kept trying to shove me and I kept shoving back and I was yelling a lot. I was not quiet,” she recalls.

Jack was finally able to escape after tackling the tall, thin man on the sidewalk. She ran as fast as she could to the home she had come from and stayed there the rest of the night.

She shared her story on social media. It quickly spread through the many Indigenous communities of the Nicola Valley, as friends and family tried to get word out, but she didn’t report it to police.

Jack says she’s uncomfortable dealing with RCMP because she was abducted as a child, and police didn’t seem to care.

“When I was 12, I was abducted, raped, and beaten and thrown in a ditch and it was reported,” she tells NEWS 1130.

She is one of many women taking to social media instead of reporting to police. Melissa Moses, the Women's Representative for the UBCIC who knows Danielle, says police often retraumatize Indigenous women, and at times have been the perpetrators of violence. More on @NEWS1130

— Ash Kelly she/her (settler) (@AshDKelly) February 10, 2021

“It was reported and everything went by the book and nothing happened. And my mom was the one that told me about how everything works because we’re Native or Indigenous, it’s something that we’re identified as … So when this time it almost happened I thought, you know what, I’m not going to go through all that embarrassment again and I just decided not to say anything and just kind of carry on living my life,” Jack adds.

Over the weekend, the Coquitlam RCMP called recent social media reports of potential abduction attempts on the Lower Mainland “rumours.” The force came under fire for its response to the viral TikTok video, leading the BC RCMP to issue another statement saying it regretted causing anger and upsetting people.

RCMP are strongly encouraging everyone to contact them as soon as possible in the event of a serious or violent incident.

However, numerous experts tell NEWS 1130 that women are more likely to take to social media to share their experiences, out of fears they won’t be believed and because they face a difficult stigma that’s been associated with victims. Jack agreed.

“It’s just really sad and it’s really heartbreaking that they would say something like that and publicly, to say that it’s rumours when it’s the people that it’s happening to who are sharing it on Facebook or social media. And to say that it’s rumors and it’s just kind of like, who do we trust then? We have nobody that we can trust or turn to. And it’s kind of scary,” says Jack.

Melissa Moses, a self-defence instructor and the elected women’s representative for the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, says she was called back to Canada by elders as the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls brought to light how serious the issue was.

Indigenous women are three to six times more likely to be killed than non-Indigenous women depending on where in Canada you’re looking.

According to the Native Women’s Association of Canada, “16.5% of offenders are strangers with no prior connection to the woman or girl (in contrast, Statistics Canada reports that, between 1997 and 2004, only 6% of murdered non-Aboriginal women were killed by strangers).”

“So the statistics are very high for Indigenous women and girls,” Moses explains. “[The elders] said, ‘Melissa, could you come home and start teaching self-defence to our Indigenous youth and women?’ And that was the reason why I came back home. I had a set of skills that I can back and help empower my people.”

Related articles: 

• RCMP ‘regret’ statements over social-media fuelled abduction concerns, address public backlash

• Anti-violence advocate says RCMP minimizing fear of viral posts claiming B.C. women being abducted

• ‘No one’s going to prioritize your safety the way you will’: Self-defence instructor gives advice to women

Moses is the owner and chief instructor of Nicola Valley Muay Thai and Self-Defence. She says in the first year of her business launching, she taught about 600 Indigenous women and youth how to defend themselves. But she notes her work is also about empowering women, using culture to do so.

She recalls being overwhelmed by reports from the women she was teaching when she first got back home.

“Indigenous women would share their stories and I even heard stories from our young ladies and their moms. They’re so young and they’re being targeted at such a young age, it’s very disturbing and it’s heartbreaking and just hearing these, it’s such an overwhelming feeling that it’s, you want to cry and you want to be enraged because there’s just so much going on,” Moses says.

“And to hear when they have reported to the police that there’s not a lot that the police do or can do depending on the situation and the particular stories in each case. So it discourages a lot of women from reporting,” she adds.

Through this discouragement, Moses believes we’re losing a lot of data, noting there are more women who have been in these kinds of situations than police may actually know of.

“A lot of Indigenous people get discouraged. You’ll hear a lot of Indigenous women that say, like, we can’t trust the police sometimes in some of the cases, some of the assaults, sexual assaults are from some police officers,” she says.

Related articles: 

• ‘No evidence’ to support viral posts claiming B.C. women are being abducted: RCMP

• As Coquitlam RCMP faces backlash, expert says women more likely to turn to social media than police

• ‘Extremely serious issue’: Federal minister on B.C. RCMP dismissing warnings about women at risk

“When we hear of missing Indigenous women and girls going missing a lot of the time, even a … the first things that the RCMP say is ‘Was she out drinking? Was she partying? Was she doing drugs?’ …  versus like she’s just a mom who was walking home and it was late at night and these three guys, they knew what they were doing, they knew what they were targeting,” Moses explains.

Meanwhile, the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs calls the RCMP’s response “alarming.”

In a statement, the UBCIC says Mounties failed to address the reasons women have come to depend on social media to report these situations.

“In their response, the RCMP failed to address the fear, mistrust, and colonial forces that compel women to depend on social media mobilization instead of the police for their safety, and ultimately dismissed the deeply rooted fear and trauma that plagues Indigenous women as a result of the ongoing Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) crisis,” the statement reads.

The @UBCIC has released a statement condemning the inaction and dismissal by police in response to social media tips of violence and potential abductions: https://t.co/nHZBFh01H2#MMIWG @NEWS1130 pic.twitter.com/1vW8FVgqsB

— Ash Kelly she/her (settler) (@AshDKelly) February 10, 2021

“The RCMP missed an invaluable opportunity – rather than berate vulnerable, fearful women for and dismiss their reasonably founded fears, they should have called attention to the systemic issues of violence, discrimination, and misogyny that have fueled the MMIWG crisis and contribute to the growing number of missing women cases in Lower Mainland,” reads a statement from Kukpi7 Judy Wilson, secretary treasurer of the UBCIC.

“By putting out a statement that fails to respect the real concerns and experiences of the women in our community, the RCMP are greatly discouraging people from coming forward in the future to share their stories of violence, victimization, and discrimination,” Wilson says.

“Furthermore, they are contributing to the silencing of the issue of sexual violence that has long infiltrated our community and made women, girls, and people of marginalized genders fearful and hyper-vigilant.

“As an active member of the Coalition on MMIWG2S, UBCIC is committed to ensuring the National Inquiry’s Calls for Justice are implemented and honored by law enforcement, and that colonial tactics are never used to deny or discredit the experiences and truths of our women,” the statement adds.

‘These guys picked the wrong person to try and abduct’

Moses spoke with Jack and told her, “In order to help other people, we first have to help ourselves,” hoping it would encourage her to seek healing and guidance.

Moses prefers healing through traditional and ceremonial Indigenous methods but says the first step on the healing journey for women is they need to be believed.

Jack is a fighter, says Moses, and she’s convinced the men may have mistaken the petite woman as a child, which makes her escape that much more breathtaking.

“I think these guys picked the wrong person to try to abduct and didn’t realize that she was a grown woman, a very empowered woman. And she said she has overcome a very traumatic incident when she was abducted at 12 years old,” says Moses.

Jack admits she’s experiencing PTSD, panic attacks, and anxiety. Her doctor has requested she take time off work.

She hopes informal reports, such as those made on social media, will be taken more seriously going forward.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this article contained a possible description of a suspect. This has been removed.