“Why Do Police Kill?” Project

Criminology students at Kwantlen Polytechnic University have launched a research project on police killings in Canada, “Why Do Police Kill?” The project and website originated in Criminology professor Jeff Shantz’s second year Crime, Criminal Justice, and the Media course held over the Summer Semester 2019.

This is an important project which documents and attempts to shed some light on police killings in Canada. Police killings receive far too little attention in Canada and relatively little public response outside of the courageous efforts of family and loved ones.

The site, which will be regularly updated, can be found at: whydopolicekill.com

RCMP Evacuate Central City Mall: Won’t Give Details

On Sunday, August 25, 2019, Surrey RCMP evacuated the busy Central City mall. Hundreds of people were forced to leave the mall and police tape was put up across entrances. Yet a day later no detailed explanation has been provided by police for their actions. Once again the community is left without basic information or explanation as police control what the public will be allowed to know.


CTV Vancouver reports this:

Police confirmed the evacuation Sunday afternoon, saying that they were called to the scene for a “public safety matter” at one of the larger retailers in the mall.

Asked for more details about the nature of the issue, police declined to comment, saying they couldn't identify the specific store because that store was a victim. (Holliday CTV News)

This is somewhat contradictory. If it was a “public safety matter” than the public deserves to know the nature of the safety issue, what it involved, what was done to resolve it, and why. Yet based on news reports, the RCMP say it was actually a private business security matter. The RCMP acting as corporate security for a large retailer. They even suggest that this private (not public) matter is their reason for not saying more publicly.

There have been too many police actions in Surrey in which RCMP refuse to provide proper information to the public. This includes a school evacuation last year in which a school official reported at a Parent Advisory Committee meeting that the RCMP knew there was no reasonable threat yet decided to take advantage of a situation to do a practice run for their gang response teams.

These sorts of actions allow police to ramp up public panics and manipulate fear politics. All toward the end of more dependence on police. Another way in which Surrey residents are not well served by policing in our city.

Surrey Woman Falls to Death During RCMP Encounter on August 13, 2019

Independent Investigations Office (IIO) of British Columbia is carrying out its second investigation of RCMP in Surrey in a two day period.  On August 13, 2019, a woman fell to her death in the presence of RCMP officers at an apartment complex in the 14000 block of 103A Avenue. The IIO are also investigating after RCMP shot a man on 135A Street in Whalley on August 14.

RCMP Shot Man Outside Lookout Shelter on 135A Street in Whalley

On August 14, 2019, Surrey RCMP shot a man. Few details were initially released. It has now been reported that the man was shot outside the Lookout Society’s Gateway Shelter on 135A Street. The police shooting occurred around 4 am.


A witness working in the area at the time the shooting took place reports that he heard police fire either five or six shots. Police closed 135A Street between 106 Avenue and 108 Avenue for about 12 hours.


The area along 135A Street where the police shooting occurred has been the site of much police violence and criminalization of poor and homeless people. A homeless camp on The Strip was forcibly evicted by police after an extended period of harassment and violence by police and bylaw enforcement officers.


Police and the City of Surrey have held up their model of integrated and repressive operations as an exemplar of layered policing and have worked to export the model to other municipalities in British Columbia.

RCMP Shoot Man in Surrey, August 14, 2019

RCMP have shot a man in the early morning hours of August 14, 2019 in Surrey, British Columbia. Few details have been released as of this report’s writing.


The RCMP claim officers were called at around 4 am concerning a man alleged to be holding a machete. They claim that the officers had some “interaction” with a man before they “fired their service pistols.” The man was shot and is in hospital with what are said to be non-life-threatening gunshot injuries.


No one else has been reported injured and there has been no public confirmation that anyone was holding a machete. None of the police claims have been independently confirmed publicly.

Cops Lie: Police Deception and the Killing of Nona McEwan and Randy Crosson

Jeff Shantz



Cops lie. That basic truth is perhaps nowhere more in evidence than in the public statements made by police immediately after they kill someone. Too often in such cases police engage in victim blaming or the purposeful framing of information to imply that victims had threatened police or engaged in some sort of exchange.


We have seen examples of the latter most recently in Surrey, British Columbia, when RCMP shot and killed Nona McEwan and Randy Crosson in a situation described by police as a hostage taking on March 29, 2019. For more than a month RCMP put out a message publicly implying that Randy Crosson had killed Nona McEwan.


When asked directly if he could say conclusively that a police bullet did not hit Nona McEwan, the Surrey Now-Leader reports that Integrated Homicide Investigation Team spokesperson Corporal Frank Jang replied:


“No, I mean that’s all part of the investigation that’s happening now. There will be updates coming forth from the IIO but all those details, the exact mechanism, entries, where the shots came from, that’s all going to be part of the investigation. I can’t comment further because it’s still ongoing.”



Not long afterward the lie was put to this statement when the IIO reported that RCMP had shot and killed both McEwan and Crosson. Certainly, officers at the scene, and IHIT member Jang must have known police had done the shooting. And we might well figure that they knew this over a month of statements that posed Crosson as potentially the killer.


This would seem to be an effort at deceiving the public. The hope for police would be that by the time counter-information came out the public would have moved on or forgotten the issue.


This is not the first time that police have acted in this way, even in Surrey. On July 18, 2015, 20-year-old Hudson Brooks was shot and killed by RCMP Constable Elizabeth Cucheran. Cucheran had also been shot and in the first public reports by RCMP it was suggested that the officer had somehow been injured by Brooks, the implication being a shootout. It turns out this was a police distortion, again likely designed to cast suspicion on the victim and to legitimize the officers’ actions publicly. It was eventually revealed that the officer had been shot by a weapon fired by police (no weapons other than police weapons were on the scene)—by the officer herself in a panic.


Residents of Metro Vancouver will also remember the RCMP tasing and killing of Robert Dziekański. Immediately following their killing of Dziekański, RCMP made a series of public statements proven later to be false. They told a tale apparently designed to denigrate Dziekański in the public eye, initially claiming he threw things and screamed and yelled after police arrived. Police also suggested that Dziekański was intoxicated. All of this was contradicted when a bystander video taken by traveler Paul Pritchard came forward. The video showed that, contrary to police, the taser was not used as a last resort but was deployed almost immediately. Police took Pritchard’s video and refused to return it until he brought forward a lawsuit for its return.



Cops lie to control information to the public. The silence regarding the RCMP killing of Randy Crosson and Nona McEwan must be broken. The public needs to know immediately when cops kill. And we need to know the names of killer cops. We have every right to know the killer cops active in our communities and to know, and oppose, repeat offenders being unleashed in our communities. To get rid of them (and to move toward community not cops).