On a frigid January morning, a group of cowboys gather at the Kainai Memorial Agriplex. They tease one another in a way of playful familiarity with bonds running deep but there’s an air of mourning here as well. One of them is no longer around.
“After his death, coming back to work here, it was heavy. It was hard to get going again and it still kind of feels that way,” Bill Creighton said.
Creighton is talking about his cousin Jon Wells. A champion steer wrestler, the 42-year-old was a well-known and much-loved member of the Blood Tribe First Nation. Also known as the Kainai First Nation, the reserve land in southwest Alberta sits in the shadow of the rocky mountains. With a rich history in agriculture, the cowboy and rodeo culture on the First Nation is strong.
“We lost a mentor,” said friend and colleague, John Colliflower. “This community now has a hole in it and those kinds of holes aren’t easily filled.”
Wells died while in police custody in Calgary on Sept. 17, 2024. According to the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT), officers with the Calgary Police Service were called to a disturbance at the Carriage House Hotel and Conference Centre. Wells appeared dazed when he was told to leave by an officer. The agency said he raised his hands and started to walk out, telling police, “I don’t want to die.”
He was tackled to the ground after he resisted an officer trying to grab him, and was then punched in the head, restrained and sedated, ASIRT said.
- Alberta business community says everyone will feel the pain from Trump’s tariffs
- Saint John and Calgary are the Canadian cities that would be hit hardest by U.S. tariffs: report
- Tate McRae, Josh Ross lead Juno Award nominees with 5 each
- Alleged fentanyl dealer arrested in Calgary, large amount of drugs seized
He was found to be unresponsive by emergency crews and was declared dead a short while later.
Get breaking National news
Five months later, friends and family are still waiting to learn whether the officers involved in Wells’ death will face criminal charges. The family says they’ve been told the investigation could take a year or more.
“The loss of Jon has had a pretty big impact on our community,” Shane Little Bear said.
With a towering presence and joyful, boyish smile, Little Bear’s eyes held a spark of excitement as he recalled Wells’ work teaching rodeo to local kids.
Little Bear says his friend’s impact on local kids was “magic.” Now, he says, those young people are struggling with a sense of betrayal and loss
“They’re telling us, I thought police are supposed to protect us,” he said. “For a lot of people, it’s shaken our trust.”
Wells’ sister, Leslie, agrees. In her role as the Blood Tribe’s opioid response co-ordinator she’s heard from many young people in the community who are struggling with feelings of fear and distrust when it comes to police.
“In some of the community wellness meetings I have held here, what came up was the incident with Jon,” she said. “The young people felt extremely scared. They don’t know where to go to for help. Now they’re too scared to ask for help if anything were to happen.”
The Wells family has joined the Assembly of First Nations in a call for a national inquiry into systemic racism in policing. Wells was one of nine Indigenous people to die following interactions with police across Canada last summer, with incidents reported in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick.
In December 2024, Wells’ mother, Edith, was invited to speak at a national meeting of the Assembly of First Nations in Ottawa. With an audience that included Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Edith Wells made an emotional plea for justice. A clip of the moment posted by APTN to TikTok went viral, viewed more than two million times.
Jon was Edith’s second-oldest son and the two were very close.
“He was caring and silly,” she said with a sad smile. “I always knew when he wanted to talk to me. We’ve always had that bond where we sit and talk for hours.”
Now, she says, she’s talking as much as she can on her son’s behalf.
“I’m trying to gather my words together and to be strong for my son because it’s for him. I’m trying to get justice for him.”
But waiting for that justice, Edith Wells says, has been agonizingly hard.
“I don’t like it,” she said with a sob. “I don’t have all the answers. I haven’t been given them.”
A week after Wells’ death, ASIRT released details of its preliminary investigation. It said the incident was captured on body-worn camera, though that footage has not been released to the public or shown to members of the Wells family.
In a notice posted on Sept. 25, 2024, ASIRT said its “investigation will examine the use of force by the officers.” Global News has reached out to ASIRT for an update on the investigation but has not received a response.
Edith Wells said the family has been told to prepare to wait 12 to 18 months for the release of a final report.
“Our family feels like it’s been torn apart,” said Melissa Crying Head, Jon Wells’ sister. “A huge part of our lives has been taken from us.”