Chantal Moore’s mother tells inquest of police shooting

The mother of an Indigenous woman shot by New Brunswick police in 2020 told a coroner’s inquest Monday that less than two hours after she was awakened by an officer seeking her daughter’s address to check on her safety, police returned with news that her daughter had been killed.

Martha Martin was one of the first witnesses called Monday at the inquest into the June 4, 2020, death of her daughter, 26-year-old Chantel Moore, a member of the Tla-oqui-aht First Nation in B.C.

Martin said Const. Jeremy Son of the Edmundston, N.B., police knocked on her door at 2:30 a.m. to say there was concern for Moore’s safety. He said police had received calls from Moore’s ex-boyfriend, suggesting someone might be stalking Moore and they needed to check on her. Martin said she gave Son directions to her daughter’s new apartment and he left, but at 4:19 a.m. there was another knock on her door.

“It was two police officers to give me the news my daughter had been shot,” she said sobbing.

Jonathan Brunet, a former boyfriend of Moore, told the inquiry he got a series of text messages from Moore in the hours before her death, and at one point it appeared the messages were coming from a third person. He said it was as if the person was in Moore’s apartment and was going to harm her.

T.J. Burke, the lawyer for Moore’s family, stated that the Edmundston police force lacked the tools to deescalate the situation without using deadly force, and he plans to file a lawsuit on Tuesday against the city and the officer who shot Moore.