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Indian Ernie: Perspectives on Policing and Leadership
(From Chapters Indigo)
When he began his career with the Saskatoon Police in 1987, Ernie Louttit was only the city's third native police officer. Indian Ernie, as he came to be known on the streets, here details an era of challenge, prejudice, and also tremendous change in urban policing. Drawing from his childhood, army career, and service as a veteran patrol officer, Louttit shares stories of criminals and victims, the night shift, avoiding politics, but most of all, the realities of the marginalized and disenfranchised.
Louttit spent his entire career (including as a Sergeant) patrolling the streets of Saskatoon's west side, an area until recently beset by poverty, and terrible social conditions. Here, he struggled to bring justice to communities where the lines between criminal and victim often blurred. Though Louttit's story is characterized by conflict, danger, and violence, he argues that empathy and love for the community you serve are the greatest tools in any officer's hands, especially when policing society's less fortunate.
While his story is based on his experiences in Saskatoon, it is equally applicable to the challenges faced in any community where marginalized people live. It is an exciting, passionate, easy to read, and highly accessible story aimed at a broad audience.
When he began his career with the Saskatoon Police in 1987, Ernie Louttit was only the city's third native police officer. Indian Ernie, as he came to be known on the streets, here details an era of challenge, prejudice, and also tremendous change in urban policing. Drawing from his childhood, army career, and service as a veteran patrol officer, Louttit shares stories of criminals and victims, the night shift, avoiding politics, but most of all, the realities of the marginalized and disenfranchised.
Louttit spent his entire career (including as a Sergeant) patrolling the streets of Saskatoon's west side, an area until recently beset by poverty, and terrible social conditions. Here, he struggled to bring justice to communities where the lines between criminal and victim often blurred. Though Louttit's story is characterized by conflict, danger, and violence, he argues that empathy and love for the community you serve are the greatest tools in any officer's hands, especially when policing society's less fortunate.
While his story is based on his experiences in Saskatoon, it is equally applicable to the challenges faced in any community where marginalized people live. It is an exciting, passionate, easy to read, and highly accessible story aimed at a broad audience.
192 pages, Paperback
First published November 22, 2013
9 people are currently reading
138 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
November 11, 2017
I finished this a couple of months back but have held off reviewing it. If I were wise I would just assign a number of stars to the rating and keep my mouth shut but since wisdom has eluded me all these years there is no point searching for it now.
I sometimes think that one of the strongest arguments for the non-existence of God is the fact that He, apparently, is responsible for having such a diversity of races scattered around the globe. What omniscient entity wouldn't be aware that racial diversity, to such a flawed and fractious creature as mankind, would be another divisive issue for strife and warfare? I don't care what race you pick, just pick one and go with it. One less thing to fight about.
I have a lot of respect for the author, and have walked a way in his boots in years gone by. We both came from less than opulent origins and joined the military in the MP trade...in fact, served in a small trade at the same time without ever meeting. He mustered out honourably and signed up with the Saskatoon Police service. He is Indian, as he likes you to know right from the outset, having been christened as Indian Ernie by the citizens he protected, presumably to distinguish him from the many other Ernies on the Saskatoon Police. Something along the lines of the old Archie Bunker bit where he mentions "Black Elmo" and "Regular Elmo". Why does Ernie flaunt his race so aggressively? I think it's because if Ernie was a regular old vanilla white guy, he doesn't have a book. Hundreds of guys have joined the military and followed that up with a stint in law enforcement, and while any cop's career is interesting, few of them are write-a-book interesting. Ernie's book is worthy of note because he is one of very few policemen of aboriginal or indigenous ancestry to have served in the friendly little city of Saskatoon, in spite of aggressive recruiting policies and hiring initiatives.
I'm not sure what he was trying to do with his book. The best passages are the biographical parts leading up to joining the military, and he is quite good in detailing the actual police work he was involved in. Less interesting were the passages where he held forth on leadership; I was done with that stuff when I retired. I was intrigued to find that he held basically the same views I do on some of the legal decisions enacted to "help" the indigenous people of this nation. Take, for example, the controversial Gladue decision. I have basically taken it to say "here, you're an Indian so you're too f*****g stupid to know what you were doing, so we'll give you 1/4 the sentence we would give anyone else." On page 102 Louttit writes:
"To me, nothing says you are a second-class citizen as a native person louder than saying we must give convicted criminals special consideration because they're native. I think the decision was condescending."
So in the final analysis, it was a hard book to read. Racial considerations were prevalent throughout, and it must be hard to have to go through the process of asking yourself if you're being criticized because you did something incorrectly or if it's because you're native. There's a lot of that racial undercurrent in the book, and Ernie clearly has some anger management issues, throwing a shotgun at a colleague in one instance. Now if that fellow got mad at you, would it be because you were an Indian or because you were acting like an asshole?
Louttit has a lot of potential as a writer, and this is an important book. I could see him having a great career as a chronicler of police work, provided his publisher would employ a proofreader of some kind. Mistakes detract from the message, and when they leave in a sentence like this one on page 23: "The second and equally important thing you need to remember is to expect nothing from anyone for nothing." , it detracts from a very important point Ernie was trying to make. I hope his message gets through and that a lot of disadvantaged youth will follow his example.
I sometimes think that one of the strongest arguments for the non-existence of God is the fact that He, apparently, is responsible for having such a diversity of races scattered around the globe. What omniscient entity wouldn't be aware that racial diversity, to such a flawed and fractious creature as mankind, would be another divisive issue for strife and warfare? I don't care what race you pick, just pick one and go with it. One less thing to fight about.
I have a lot of respect for the author, and have walked a way in his boots in years gone by. We both came from less than opulent origins and joined the military in the MP trade...in fact, served in a small trade at the same time without ever meeting. He mustered out honourably and signed up with the Saskatoon Police service. He is Indian, as he likes you to know right from the outset, having been christened as Indian Ernie by the citizens he protected, presumably to distinguish him from the many other Ernies on the Saskatoon Police. Something along the lines of the old Archie Bunker bit where he mentions "Black Elmo" and "Regular Elmo". Why does Ernie flaunt his race so aggressively? I think it's because if Ernie was a regular old vanilla white guy, he doesn't have a book. Hundreds of guys have joined the military and followed that up with a stint in law enforcement, and while any cop's career is interesting, few of them are write-a-book interesting. Ernie's book is worthy of note because he is one of very few policemen of aboriginal or indigenous ancestry to have served in the friendly little city of Saskatoon, in spite of aggressive recruiting policies and hiring initiatives.
I'm not sure what he was trying to do with his book. The best passages are the biographical parts leading up to joining the military, and he is quite good in detailing the actual police work he was involved in. Less interesting were the passages where he held forth on leadership; I was done with that stuff when I retired. I was intrigued to find that he held basically the same views I do on some of the legal decisions enacted to "help" the indigenous people of this nation. Take, for example, the controversial Gladue decision. I have basically taken it to say "here, you're an Indian so you're too f*****g stupid to know what you were doing, so we'll give you 1/4 the sentence we would give anyone else." On page 102 Louttit writes:
"To me, nothing says you are a second-class citizen as a native person louder than saying we must give convicted criminals special consideration because they're native. I think the decision was condescending."
So in the final analysis, it was a hard book to read. Racial considerations were prevalent throughout, and it must be hard to have to go through the process of asking yourself if you're being criticized because you did something incorrectly or if it's because you're native. There's a lot of that racial undercurrent in the book, and Ernie clearly has some anger management issues, throwing a shotgun at a colleague in one instance. Now if that fellow got mad at you, would it be because you were an Indian or because you were acting like an asshole?
Louttit has a lot of potential as a writer, and this is an important book. I could see him having a great career as a chronicler of police work, provided his publisher would employ a proofreader of some kind. Mistakes detract from the message, and when they leave in a sentence like this one on page 23: "The second and equally important thing you need to remember is to expect nothing from anyone for nothing." , it detracts from a very important point Ernie was trying to make. I hope his message gets through and that a lot of disadvantaged youth will follow his example.
October 21, 2021
Not really sure how I feel about this book. It was mostly interesting but I was hoping for more emotion or reflection or something. I guess it kind of reads like a factual police report for the most part, which makes sense for a book by a retired cop (e.g. often referring to people as "a male" "the female" etc). If I was the editor there would have been lots of parts where I commented "not really sure what you mean by that, can you expand?"
Neat to learn sort of a history of the SPS and how much it has improved over the years. The book just didn't tick all the boxes for me and I didn't emotionally connect with it, but I don't regret reading it. For a first book from an amateur local writer it was a solid effort!
Neat to learn sort of a history of the SPS and how much it has improved over the years. The book just didn't tick all the boxes for me and I didn't emotionally connect with it, but I don't regret reading it. For a first book from an amateur local writer it was a solid effort!
December 24, 2020
I would not say this was an easy read because many of his stories were tragic and heartbreaking but it was definitely a worthwhile read. As he worked in the same area as the schools I work in, it hit close to home, which maybe pushed me to keep reading when the stories were challenging. It also made me respect and admire more the work that police officers do.
March 5, 2018
This book is a truthful, down-to-earth account of the author's career, first in the military police and then for a much longer time in the Saskatoon Police Services. From a patrol constable and sergeant's perspective, he tells of his experiences in Saskatoon, an ultra-busy place for front-line police officers.
Informative and interesting, it is one of the best memoirs I've read.
Informative and interesting, it is one of the best memoirs I've read.
July 23, 2014
"Indian Ernie" by Ernie Louttit gives readers a glimpse into what it really means to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. As a native american cop in a city historically divided on racial lines, Ernie Louttit walked on a tight-rope called the "thin blue line". Facing discrimination from his fellow officers not used to seeing a brown face behind a badge, as well as from the native community he wished to serve labelling him a "sell-out", he persevered through a distinguished career spanning decades to overcome stereotypes, alienation and ostracization to earn the respect of the police force, the community and most importantly, himself.
August 3, 2014
Good front-line perspective by an Aboriginal street cop about policing in areas with a lot of Aboriginals dealing with a lot of issues.
The chapter on solvent abuse and how he tried to deal with it and its consequences as a cop was revealing regarding 1) what a gruesome impact this particular kind of substance abuse has, and 2) how difficult it is to try to use law enforcement to deal with the problem.
A good read for cops, for people wanting to learn more about a cop's world, and some interesting bits of information for anyone trying to figure out how to deal with Aboriginal issues.
The chapter on solvent abuse and how he tried to deal with it and its consequences as a cop was revealing regarding 1) what a gruesome impact this particular kind of substance abuse has, and 2) how difficult it is to try to use law enforcement to deal with the problem.
A good read for cops, for people wanting to learn more about a cop's world, and some interesting bits of information for anyone trying to figure out how to deal with Aboriginal issues.
April 26, 2018
Being from a policing family and growing up in Sask, this book was a fantastic read for me. I know all the locations and can visualize the stories well because of that. I also see the effect policing has on the officers and could relate to their family's struggles as well. Ernie also does a great job making sure positive and encouraging messages are part of the novel too. Its so refreshing to read something this good that is local and still current. I will be keeping this around for a re-read.
December 12, 2017
This was definitely not what I expected. A very candid and believable memoir of being a city police officer. Very interesting and easy to read. Definitely a good fit for ELA 30 reading. Many references to leadership and what qualities a good leader demonstrates.
I look forward to hearing this author speak.
I look forward to hearing this author speak.
April 9, 2018
I enjoyed this one, gave a good insight into the authors life and work and what kind of things go on during patrol. Enough interesting stories mixed with introspection to keep it balanced and flowing.
July 23, 2020
I really enjoyed this book and it was quite timely. His perspective is very interesting.
September 13, 2016
3.5 Stars
This memoir provides a unique perspective into police work and the Aboriginal experience in Canada. The writing is fairly weak, but I still appreciated the importance of the book. Many of the stories recounted in this memoir were particularly violent and often difficult to read. Louttit is very honest about the dark and depressing aspects of police work, crime and our justice system. I would recommend this insightful memoir to Canadian readers.
This memoir provides a unique perspective into police work and the Aboriginal experience in Canada. The writing is fairly weak, but I still appreciated the importance of the book. Many of the stories recounted in this memoir were particularly violent and often difficult to read. Louttit is very honest about the dark and depressing aspects of police work, crime and our justice system. I would recommend this insightful memoir to Canadian readers.
September 8, 2016
This account is just amazing and allows you a very real look into the policing of Saskatoon. The most impactful theme was compassion and understanding are virtues that are perfectly normal to struggle with. He shows you that as long as you are struggling, you are still doing your part to be the best person you can be.
January 1, 2016
This account is just amazing and allows you a very real look into the policing of Saskatoon. The most impactful theme was compassion and understanding are virtues that are perfectly normal to struggle with. He shows you that as long as you are struggling, you are still doing your part to be the best person you can be.
April 30, 2014
Must read for an understanding of community policing and the power of transformational leadership!
May 6, 2014
Read my review here!
http://areadersrapture.blogspot.ca/20...
http://areadersrapture.blogspot.ca/20...
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews