Assembly of First Nations women’s council calls for accountability in death of Chantel Moore

It has been two years since Chantel Moore was fatally shot by police in New Brunswick throughout a wellness test.

Her household and advocates are nonetheless searching for justice, and say extra must be performed.

“The place can we go when the people who find themselves purported to be serving to us are those who’re murdering us?” mentioned Ocean Man First Nation Chief Connie Large Eagle, chair of the Meeting of First Nations Ladies’s Council, on Monday throughout a information convention in Vancouver.

“We have to discover options and we have to be included in these options.”

Chiefs from throughout Canada are gathering in Vancouver this week for the Meeting of First Nations (AFN) annual normal meeting. The group’s ladies’s council, which works to make sure that the considerations and views of First Nations ladies inform the work of the AFN, is advocating for higher police accountability and justice for Moore’s household.

Moore, a member of the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation in B.C., was shot and killed by an Edmundston, N.B., police officer who’d been dispatched to test on her wellbeing on June 4, 2020.

In Might, a New Brunswick coroner’s inquest dominated her loss of life a murder. In 2021, the New Brunswick Police Fee discovered there was “inadequate proof” that the officer breached the Code of Skilled Conduct Regulation. The Public Prosecutions Service of New Brunswick has mentioned it’ll not pursue costs in opposition to the officer.

Moore’s household says there’s been no justice.

“I am not going anyplace. I am not going to be silenced,” mentioned Moore’s mom Martha Martin. 

“I am so bored with seeing suggestions after suggestions and we see no motion. Till I see arduous motion, we’ll proceed to make noise.”

Martin’s son died by suicide whereas in police custody in 2020, 5 months after Moore.

“There’s been a number of shootings after,” mentioned Martin.

“This listing can go on and on… We’d like our management to step in and begin making motion plans. I am performed seeing suggestions. I wish to see arduous motion.”

Resolutions to implement Requires Justice

The AFN Ladies’s Council is pushing for the implementation of the 231 Requires Justice made by the nationwide inquiry into lacking and murdered Indigenous ladies and ladies.

Two draft resolutions can be put ahead through the normal meeting this week: to assist the household of Chantel Moore and implementation of the 231 Requires Justice, and to assist sustainable funding and accountability for the implementation of the 231 Requires Justice. 

“We’re right here in solidarity to say that Chantel is not going to be forgotten,” mentioned B.C. Ladies’s Council consultant Louisa Housty-Jones.

“We should proceed to press for justice for Chantel and all those that have skilled loss of life and abuse by the hands of the police.”