Chris Hawkins died last September. His sister Shanda says a farmer's beating set off a chain of events, including RCMP mishandling of the case. (Submitted photo/Shanda Tansowny)

By Susan McNeil

Farm violence

Sister wants to see change following beating on Melfort farm

Aug 4, 2023 | 5:00 PM

Shanda Tansowny can accept that her brother may have died because of health problems brought on by his own actions but can’t accept that farmers can dispatch beatings to people on their property without consequence.

Tansowny said her brother Chris Hawkins, an agronomist, was looking for work and taking photos when he went to a farm near Melfort around noon on Sept. 21, 2022. She knows about the issues farmers face with the theft of costly equipment and the sometimes slow response from law enforcement.

“I can’t imagine what it’s like to have someone come on their property in the middle of the night and steal $70,000 worth of equipment, but that’s not what my brother was doing there,” said Tansowny.

Neither can she accept that the Melfort RCMP lied in the follow-up investigation into her brother’s death following the beating.

Tansowny was told by the detachment commander at the time that it was not possible for people to be charged with assault if the victim had died. They can be charged, but getting a conviction is trickier without the victim’s testimony.

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Her questions don’t stop there.

RCMP documents in the public complaint filed by Tansowny detail that the constable who investigated was presented with two allegations, one by the farmer and one by her brother.

The report said that the constable failed in his duty by automatically believing the farmer and making no attempt to investigate Chris’ statement that he was beaten without provocation.

The constable that investigated the assault didn’t properly document the scene or collect evidence, such as the zip ties that had been used to restrain Chris.

Tansowny said there is video evidence of what happened on the farm, operated by Peter and Adam McLean, and that it does not match the complaint given to RCMP.

Police did not act on her questions or concerns, and it was only after she told them she had the video that anything changed, Tansowny said.

Officers told her that he had not been assaulted, but photos she received of her brother show what she says are clear signs of assault.

“There is no question in my mind that my brother was assaulted. The police told me he had not been assaulted. Then I receive these pictures and I’m like, how can you say that?” she said.

After Chris was taken to the Melfort Union Hospital by the officer that day, he was transferred to Saskatoon with an abdomen full of blood.

Chris remained there for weeks before being discharged – against the strong opposition of Tansowny, herself a registered nurse, who said she told his doctor he had no help and no place to go in Saskatoon. No one would call social services to help him find a place to go and her request to have him taken back to Melfort as a step-down was also refused.

He stayed in the Saskatoon hospital for a month before being released. Tansowny talked to him that day and in the following days and said he did not feel good at any point.

He made his way back to Melfort but told her several days later about more specific complaints and she told him to go back to the hospital because he was again bleeding internally.

The doctors there inserted a scope into him again as a method to stop the bleeding, but the volume of blood meant they couldn’t see properly; the scope punctured his tissue and that is how he came to die of blood loss.

“My brother never would have been in the hospital that day, if he had not been assaulted, and that’s my issue with this,” she said. “It does not matter whether he had cancer, or he was in liver failure from alcoholism or if he was the healthiest person in the world,”

Tansowny has grave concerns about the response her brother got from authorities, whether it was police, the health care system or a lack of mental health resources for diagnosed schizophrenics like Chris.

She said he drank to stop the voices in his head.

Hawkins was an agronomist but suffered from schizophrenia, which caused him to drink to stop the voices in his head. (submitted/Shanda Tansowny)

She also has concerns about vigilantism from farmers not wanting to rely on the criminal justice system.

“What’s happened is that these farmers are taking it into their own hands, and I believe that that is what (these farmers) were doing that day,” said Tansowny.

She has concerns because without initiating her own investigation, the truth of what happened on the farm might never be revealed.

“All I wanted when I started this whole thing was the truth. If I had been told the truth right off the bat that an error was made, that the police didn’t do their job properly, I would have shut up. I never would have investigated,” she said.

Partly, she worries that is because one of the two men now charged with aggravated assault and forcible confinement, one is married to a retired RCMP officer and she wonders if that changed the type of response that was given at the farm and how the subsequent investigation was handled.

“If it wasn’t manslaughter, I don’t want them to be charged with manslaughter. But I do want them to be accountable for what they did, and I want them to understand that that you just can’t go around beating them up because you want to,” she said.

Chris had previous dealings with the Melfort RCMP. Tansowny said that he may have seemed like he had no support or anyone that cared about his welfare.

“(I think) they felt like my brother was a piece of shit, and that he had no support and that nothing would be done if it was swept under the carpet. That’s what I believe happened that day,” said Tansowny.

Peter McLean and Adam McLean were charged in February of 2023 with aggravated assault and forcible confinement. Adam McLean is also charged with assault with a weapon.

No trial date has been set for the pair yet.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com