RCMP Responsible for at Least 3 Deaths in Surrey So Far in 2019: Few Public Details

Jeff Shantz


RCMP in Surrey have been involved in the deaths of at least three people so far in 2019. In all cases little information has been provided publicly and police have not been held to any sort of public account. In the case of the RCMP shooting and killing Nona McEwan and Randy Crosson, police initially put out information that was misleading and implied that one of the victims (Crosson) had killed the other (McEwan).


RCMP shot and killed Nona McEwan and Randy Crosson in a situation described by police as a hostage taking on March 29, 2019. The Independent Investigations Office (IIO) later revealed that RCMP had shot and killed both victims.


The (IIO) is also investigating after a woman fell to her death in the presence of RCMP officers on August 13, 2019 in Surrey. The IIO report that RCMP responded to an apartment complex in the 14000 block of 103A Avenue regarding a woman on the edge of a ninth floor balcony. Police entered the building, and, at some point, the woman fell. She died on the scene. No other details have yet been released publicly.


The latter case was the second IIO investigation of RCMP in a matter of days. Police shot a man on 135A Street in Whalley on August 14.


This has happened in a context in which RCMP have secured more resources over years under multiple moral panics around gangs and homelessness. Discussions of policing in Surrey have largely been uncritical and police and pro-police business associations (like the Surrey Board of Trade) dominate the public narrative.