RCMP break into Chief Allan Adam’s home on Christmas

By Jeremy Appel, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter 

(ANNews) – Chief Allan Adam of Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation was in Fort Chipewyan celebrating Christmas with his family when he learned the Wood Buffalo RCMP had broken into his home.

Adam told Alberta Native News that on Christmas Day, the Mounties broke down the front door of his house, tore into a ceremonial drum that was gifted to him from the Athabasca Tribal Council, damaged the doors to his wife’s and grandson’s bedrooms, and took three pairs of his wife’s boots.

“I can’t call the RCMP, because it was the RCMP that broke into my house,” Chief Adam said in a Facebook live stream recorded when he arrived at his Fort McMurray home in the early hours of Dec. 26. 

The video, one of several he posted in relation to the incident, showed his front door boarded up by a wood panel left by the cops. 

Adam told this newspaper in an interview as he was fixing his front door that he did call the local detachment about the break-in, with an officer telling him that he and his wife are “completely safe.”

He said footage of the police break-in from his home security cameras show nine officers entering his property, with two walking upstairs. “One came up the stairs, was looking around, and the other one came up with his hand on his holster, so tell me if I’m safe,” said Adam. 

Cpl. Mathew Howell, a spokesperson for the Alberta RCMP, disputed Adam’s characterization of a break-in, noting in an interview with Alberta Native News that police had executed a “legally obtained warrant” signed by a judge for an ongoing criminal investigation.

Chief Adam acknowledged that the RCMP was exercising a search warrant, which they left behind, as part of an investigation of his stepdaughter and her partner, who live in a basement apartment, looking for allegedly stolen goods. 

But Adam questioned why the police broke down multiple doors in his home and went through items upstairs if only the people living downstairs were the target.

“They caused more damage upstairs to the house than they did downstairs,” said Adam. 

His stepdaughter and her partner were arrested in October on charges of theft under $5,000, which have yet to be heard in court.

Adam noted that when the RCMP came to their house in October to execute a search warrant, they simply knocked on the door and his wife let them in. 

“Both times they came up empty handed,” he said, “but yet they keep coming back, because some officer says, ‘I saw them take the stuff inside the house,’ so that means my house is under surveillance.”

Howell of the RCMP said he can’t speak to “what pushed the breaking down of the door” in this specific instance, but said in general “there’s a few different aspects that can come into play,” including “officer safety” and the “need to secure evidence.” 

He added that Adam can submit a claim for any items that were damaged or lost during the warrant’s execution. 

Adam said it feels like there’s an “open search warrant on my house.”

“The RCMP are going to keep coming in here, executing that search warrant because it’s an ongoing investigation. They haven’t found no evidence, but still my house is guilty,” he said. “I’m guilty for a crime that we didn’t do.”

This wouldn’t be the first time Adam was targeted by the RCMP. 

In March 2020, Chief Adam was violently arrested outside of Boomtown Casino in Fort McMurray, which has since been renamed Rivers Casino, after police pulled him over for driving a truck with an expired license plate. 

After a verbal altercation with the officers, Adam was hit to the ground and then beaten while on the ground, leaving him with a black left eye and a cut down the left side of his face. 

He faced charges of assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest, which were quickly dropped after video of his arrest was released by himself and the RCMP. 

In December 2024, almost exactly a year before the RCMP broke into his home, Alberta’s police watchdog concluded that the officers acted “properly in the execution of their duties,” dismissing Adam’s claim of “racist treatment.”

The chief had launched a civil lawsuit against the RCMP, reaching an undisclosed settlement that precluded him from commenting on the result of the investigation. 

Adam told this newspaper that he believes his stepdaughter’s legal issues are being used by the RCMP to target him in retaliation for his legal settlement. 

“Whatever they’re doing to the house, whatever they’re doing to my own personal property at this point in time, has nothing to do with the arrests that they’ve made of my stepdaughter and her boyfriend,” he said. “If I was home, I wouldn’t put up with it.”