A Pond Inlet, Nunavut, mother says she plans to file a complaint about RCMP officers in her community after police asked her son and other children to assist them in an incident there last week.
Meeka Atagootak says last week her seven-year-old son and his friends were playing baseball outside when RCMP officers responded to an incident, where an intoxicated person was hiding under a building. He was taken into custody.
Atagootak said RCMP asked the children to assist them by going under the building to see what was going on.
She said her son found a box of wine and police rewarded him later with a chocolate bar.
Atagootak said she is not pleased police got children involved in this situation.
"If the Social Services heard about this and I'm doing this, I'm sure they can take my kids away from me, or the RCMP finds out, I would get charged,” she said. “But RCMP did it themselves and it seems to be OK with them so I'm not very happy."
Supt. Hilton Smee said police didn't know what was under the building.
“There was no intent to have people go to look for alcohol,” he said. “It was an intent to just sort of have them help and see what's going on. It was more a helping situation."
Atagootak plans to bring a complaint about the incident to her hamlet council.