The “She is Your Neighbour Podcast- A Family Story of Femicide Fallon Farinacci” is a 35 minute interview with Fallon, a Métis woman who lost her parents and brother at a young age. She is now an advocate for Indigenous women and speaks about her family's story to help bring about change. In this podcast she speaks about her parents' family friend showing many signs that he was going to become violent towards her family. These signs included increased anger, threats of killing her mother and father, threats to commit suicide, and speaking about owning weapons. The family friend began to obsess over the mother of the family, and told them he could not live without her and did not want her living with another man, such as Fallon’s father.
These red flags led her mother to call the RCMP, and although they were aware of the weapons, threats, and the man’s previous drug offences, they failed to include these concerns when presenting Fallon’s mothers statement to the judge. They gave him a restraining order but never searched the home or seized any weapons. This was just the first of many instances where the RCMP and court system failed Fallon Farinacci’s family. The threats continued and eventually Fallon’s mother lost faith in the system after even writing the RCMP a letter addressing all of her concerns. She believed that this man was going to take her life.
One night the man who had been threatening Fallon’s mother showed up at the door with the rifle the RCMP were told about twice, he entered the home and held Fallon and her brother hostage. Although they called the RCMP it took the whole night and until morning for them to arrive. In that time the man killed both of Fallon’s parents with his rifle, and then commit suicide in the home.
Fallon later found out that the only reason the RCMP showed up to the home at 7am that morning was because her grandfather had pushed them to come as hard as he could. Fallon and her brother had waited two hours in the home by themselves without the RCMP after all three had been dead. Fallon also later found out that the RCMP hostage negotiator had failed on many levels to protect Fallon’s family. He had no care or level of urgency when dealing with their calls, and he had even fallen asleep after the call and put it on other officers to try and talk the man down. Fallon and her brother also never received any post traumatic care despite being teenagers who just lost their parents. At the age of 27, Fallon’s brother committed suicide which was also extremely hard for Fallon.
This case illustrates the many ways that the system has failed to protect victims of domestic violence that becomes lethal. They had warned the RCMP about the many red flags and the system failed them many times. There were 2 other cases of femicide in Manitoba at the time due to stalkers killing women, making it clear that policies were not being implemented to protect these victims. Fallon wants her family's story to bring change and show people how impactful speaking about it and getting involved in organizations can be. She started the Indigenous Resilience Fundraiser and gives these funds to multiple organizations that help with women and Indigenous women who are in crisis.
