A Fort McMurray DJ says he was surrounded and subjected to racially motivated verbal and physical attacks by neighbours while looking for his missing cat, and that he has not returned to the street since the Sept. 11 incident. Jonathan Ndukwe and his wife, Denée Compton, say the encounter has left them fearful in their own neighbourhood and that Wood Buffalo RCMP has not followed up with them more than three weeks after they reported it.

Video recorded by a camera on Ndukwe’s glasses shows a man and woman leaving their home and approaching him. Ndukwe says he was out for the second night searching for his missing tuxedo cat. It was sometime after midnight, and he had ridden his bicycle wearing a high-visibility reflective vest and carrying a torch.

The footage shows the couple asking Ndukwe what he is doing in the neighbourhood. He replies, “I am looking for my cat.” The neighbours repeat their question, saying they had “every right to know” what business he had on the street.

Ndukwe repeatedly asks them not to come closer and says, “leave me alone,” according to the recording. The male neighbour is heard saying, “we own this just as much as you, you shouldn’t be on it.” Ndukwe says he asked the couple to call police, but they did not.

Instead, Ndukwe says, the neighbours called another neighbour. He says four neighbours eventually surrounded him, although only three appear in the videos, and one began wrestling the torch from his hand. A heated argument followed. In the footage, Ndukwe is in the middle of the street as the neighbours question his “business” in the area; he was told that his “kind” did not belong in the neighbourhood.

Ndukwe said the event has changed how safe he feels in the community and brought back traumas he had previously suppressed. “I don’t like thinking back to it because it brings up those nasty feelings in your gut,” he said, in tears.

He said he worries about what could happen to other people who look like him. “I don’t know what’s going to happen when someone else goes around there, looking for their cat, or for any other intention, if they will be received or welcomed or how they’ll be treated,” he said. He has not gone back to the street since the incident.

Ndukwe is also known as DJ QPID. He spends much of his time mixing music, reading theatre scripts and sharing home-cooked meals with friends and neighbours in the area. The neighbourhood is locally known as “The Bs,” a name linked to its many street names beginning with the letter B.

Compton said the couple reported the altercation to police. Since then, they have made multiple attempts to contact the RCMP officer in charge of the case. They say officers have not returned to collect their statements, and that they have received no update about the investigation more than three weeks after the incident.

The couple described the lack of action by Wood Buffalo RCMP as “worrisome,” saying it conveyed that the incident was “not worthy of investigating.” An officer who responded to Compton’s call after the incident later emailed the couple that, according to the neighbours who allegedly confronted Ndukwe, they initially believed him to be a homeless person “scoping the neighbourhood.”

The couple also said RCMP told them the neighbours were “sorry” and that police did not want to “embarrass them” further. Those accounts were presented by Ndukwe and Compton; the RCMP’s public response was that the file remains under investigation.

Wood Buffalo RCMP Chief Superintendent Mark Hancock told Postmedia, “I can certainly say a complaint has been made, and we are investigating it.” Hancock said he expected a follow-up soon.

The neighbours said to have initiated the altercation were contacted by Postmedia Network and provided no comment at the time of publication. The source report did not identify them by name.

The incident occurred in Fort McMurray, where Ndukwe and Compton continue to live, though they say they feel unsafe in their neighbourhood. Their account includes both the video-recorded exchange and events they say followed, including the involvement of a fourth neighbour who does not appear in the footage.

The case remains under investigation, according to Hancock. The couple’s stated concerns include the delay in taking their statements and the absence of further information from police after their attempts to reach the officer responsible.

Based on reporting by Edmonton Journal.