Ernie Louttit was something of a rarity when he began his career with the Saskatoon Police back in 1987. He was only the city’s third Aboriginal police officer; one of the few local lawmen who looked like most of the First Nations people who lived in the area he worked in on Saskatoon’s west side.
Sergeant Ernie had a career of more than 26 years before he retired in October of 2013.
His Cree background meant that Louttit got both sides of the coin when it came to reactions from the people he served. Some of them were glad to see a native on the force, working as a representative of First Nations people. Others simply saw Ernie as working for the white man and resented him, feeling he’d betrayed his ancestors and heritage.
But one positive thing that stuck was the nickname he got while working on the job. Some of the people he came into contact with – or even apprehended – saw themselves in him, and they eventually started calling him ‘Indian Ernie’.
“Kids had no filter; I’d be walking the neighborhood and get kids coming up and asking my name, and then after I told them, they’d go ‘Indian Ernie! It’s Indian Ernie!’ and run off down the street laughing,” said Louttit.
Ernie appeared in Elbow on Thursday evening, June 1 at the Civic Centre to give a presentation to a large turnout about his policing career and his new life as an author. Leading up to his retirement, Louttit wrote a book about his experiences as a Saskatoon street cop entitled, ‘Indian Ernie: Perspectives on Policing and Leadership’, published in 2013. He followed that up with another book in 2015 called, ‘More Indian Ernie: Insights from the Streets’.
Born in a remote Northern Ontario community and a member of the Missanabie Cree Band raised off reserve, Ernie attended a one-room school until grade 8. He was boarded out in another town for high school, which led to him quitting in grade 11 to work for the Canadian National Railway. At 17, he joined the Canadian Forces, serving with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and military police.
His career with the Saskatoon Police saw Louttit serve an area of the city that was stricken with drugs, crime, poverty and horrible social conditions. He was a cop during some of the most tumultuous and controversial years of the city’s police service, including being a key figure in seeing justice served in the infamous Neil Stonechild case, and he learned to navigate the choppy waters of crime, race and the expectations of a community, whether it was Caucasian or First Nations.
His nickname of Indian Ernie became something of a badge of honor for Louttit.
“It took on a life of its own, and even bad guys would start calling me Indian Ernie!” he said, as the audience laughed.
Louttit shared anecdotes in Elbow about his life on the job, including interactions with people and the notoriety he gained within the community. There was many times where criminals specifically called the communications line to see if Ernie was working that day because they didn’t want to run into him, he said.
Ernie credits parents and teachers today for changing many attitudes toward First Nations people and their cultures, noting that in the 30 years that he’s lived in the province, he’s seen a lot of progress in that area.
Life as a city street cop was hardly dull, and Louttit described one arrest situation which he labeled a “complete gong show”. It happened at a bus mall, and things turned violent when Ernie first took down a suspect and he was swiftly kicked in the face by a nearby woman. Up to that point, Louttit had never gone home from work with an injury, but in the chaos of that specific arrest, he suffered cracked ribs and facial bruises, and it was during his time of recovery that he began writing his first book and ultimately made the decision to retire from the police force.
“I just remember standing at my locker on my last day and going, ‘Wow, I made it! Almost 30 years as a street cop!’,” he said.
Following his presentation, Louttit visited with those in Elbow and signed copies of his books, with many taking the chance to speak with him about the impact he’d made on them, particularly by giving them a look at his life working in one of the most infamous, crime-ridden parts of a major Canadian city.
