‘NOW WE CAN START TO HEAL’
Family of 20-year-old Hudson Brooks relieved that a Surrey RCMP officer has been charged in his 2015 fatal shooting
A Surrey RCMP officer has been charged in the 2015 fatal shooting of 20-year-old Hudson Brooks.
Const. Elizabeth Cucheran is charged with aggravated assault and assault with a weapon in relation to the 2015 incident that took place outside the RCMP detachment’s South Surrey district office on 152nd Street.
On July 18, 2015, Brooks appeared outside and began screaming. He was believed to be suicidal at the time. Officers went outside, where a struggle ensued and Brooks was shot.
It was later determined the 20-yearold Surrey man had been shot multiple times. The only weapon recovered from the scene was a police-issued firearm; Brooks was unarmed.
The Independent Investigation Office (IIO) reviewed the incident and submitted a report to Crown counsel. Senior Crown investigators reviewed the report and approved charges.
“The investigation and charge assessment process were protracted due, in part, to the complexities of the evidentiary issues in the case and the requirement for further investigation and analysis,” the B.C. Prosecution Service said in a statement released Tuesday.
Brooks’ mother Jennifer spoke to Postmedia Tuesday afternoon, sharing her relief two years and five months after her son’s death.
“So happy. It just felt like a huge relief. We’ve all fought so very hard for Hudson and we were really elated there were charges,” she said. “All along, we wanted accountability.”
“To not have Hudson here has been a huge hole in our family. Huge. I feel we have a bit of closure here and we can breathe a sigh of relief right now and we can start to heal for our broken hearts.”
Cucheran is expected in court on Jan. 9, 2018. The B.C. Prosecution Service declined to answer emailed questions about the nature of the charges approved against the officer.
“As the charges are now before the court the B.C. Prosecution Service will have no further comment on the circumstances of the offence or specific details of the charge assessment process,” spokesman Daniel McLaughlin said in an email.
Doug King, executive director of the Together Against Poverty Society in Victoria, said he felt it was strange that a manslaughter charge was not recommended.
“It’s frustrating that the Crown has not given an explanation for why they would go in that direction, particularly in a case where you see a firearm being used,” said King, a police-accountability expert who previously worked with Pivot Legal Society.
“We can’t really speculate but the assumption is that there’s something about this case which leads the Crown to believe that maybe they couldn’t prove, necessarily, it’s the officer who was responsible for (Brooks’) death. But all of this is going to come out in the criminal proceedings.”
King said he believes Brooks’ family suffered far too long while waiting for the IIO’s decision and for the Crown to approve charges. But King said he also believes it was a “special case” in which the Crown was extra thorough and careful, particularly after it stayed charges in 2015 in the case of a 2012 police shooting at the Starlight Casino in New Westminster when new information came to light through police and IIO investigations.
“The expectation, at this point, is that these charges (against Cucheran) will go ahead and they’ll be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” King said.
Using coroner’s reports, newspaper archives and IIO press releases, Postmedia tallied that 47 people were killed in police shootings in B.C. between 2004 and 2015, an average of just under four a year. A conservative estimate is that of those, 60 per cent of the deceased were in the midst of a mental-health crisis. The list does not include people who died after being Tasered by police, or those who died in police custody or by other means.