The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Chantel Moore’s family wants answers
Late-night wellness check in New Brunswick left Indigenous mother dead
EDMUNDSTON, N.B. — It’s been nearly two years since 26-year-old Chantel Moore was shot multiple times by a lone police officer during a late-night wellness check in Edmundston, N.B., and her family wants answers about how and why she ended up dead.
A coroner’s inquest slated to determine some of the facts surrounding that night has been delayed twice and is now scheduled to begin on Monday in Fredericton.
The hearing, which was originally scheduled for Dec. 6, 2021, in Edmundston where Moore was killed and her mother and daughter currently reside, was first delayed until February 2022. The Department of Justice and Public Safety announced a second delay just two weeks before the inquest was set to begin. The department didn’t give a reason for the delays and announced it would move the inquest from Edmundston to Fredericton.
“It’s been two years since a police officer killed my daughter and still, government has not taken any action,” Moore's mother Martha Martin said. “My family in B.C. have had to cancel their flights twice and now that the location has changed, I will have to take my granddaughter, Chantel’s daughter — who I now care for — out of school and bring her to Fredericton so I can be there to find out what happened to her mother.”
Moore’s death sparked national outrage, with Indigenous leaders questioning how a call for police to check on an Indigenous woman’s safety and well-being ended with her being shot and killed. The Assembly of First Nations’ national chief called for a full and independent investigation into Moore’s death.
Quebec’s police watchdog, the Bureau des Enquêtes Indépendantes, was tapped to investigate and submitted its report to the New Brunswick Department of Justice in December 2021, one month after the New Brunswick Police Commission found that police officer Jeremy Son committed “no wrongdoing” and concluded that there was “insufficient evidence” that Son breached the Code of Professional Conduct Regulation.
New Brunswick’s Department of Justice and Public Safety has not released the independent report but did issue its own review of the investigation in June 2021, one year after Moore was killed. Martin says that’s not enough and that her family and community have a right to know what the investigation found.
The inquest is expected to last between four and six days, and while it cannot make findings of civil or criminal liability, it will be the first time witnesses are called to the stand and details about what happened to Moore will finally be made public.