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.

Surrey Cops Rip Turban Off Head of Sikh Man in Custody

A Surrey man, Kanwaljit Singh, has filed a lawsuit against the RCMP alleging excessive force for ripping his turban off his head and pulling his hair out of its topknot while he was in custody on June 30, 2017. Singh claims that RCMP also twisted his arm and grabbed his hair. One of the officers involved has been identified as Sergeant Brian Blair who was the non-commissioned officer in charge of the Surrey RCMP detachment holding cell area.  

Singh calls himself a “devout Sikh man who wears his turban as part of his religious practice.” He views the removal of the turban as a violent action that is “an insult to those beliefs.”

The defendants in the suit to the BC Supreme Court include the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General of BC, the Attorney General of Canada and Sergeant Blair.

RCMP claim that their policy and practice does not allow the wearing of turbans in holding cells. They do not deny removing Singh’s turban but say doing so was not excessive.

Charges Stayed against Elizabeth Cucheran, Cop Who Killed Hudson Brooks

RCMP Constable Elizabeth Cucheran shot and killed 20-year-old Hudson Brooks on July 18, 2015 outside the South Surrey RCMP detachment. Cucheran shot the young Brooks nine times, of a total of 12 shots she fired at him. Brooks was in obvious distress at the time, was shirtless and shoeless. He needed support and acre, but that is not what police provide. They are agents of state violence and brutality.

On September 18, 2019, the prosecution service of British Columbia did what prosecutors typically do in cases of police killing members of our communities. They let the killer cop off and stayed the charges against Cucheran. Charges that only included aggravated assault and assault with a weapon, no murder or even manslaughter. For shooting someone nine times. Cucheran was so out of control that she even shot herself, a fact that RCMP initially tried to imply was a result of a shootout with the victim.

The Brooks family and friends are obviously, and rightly, hurt by this decision, an additional act of state violence against them. This decision is an outrage and an offense to our communities. And a killer cop is free to terrorize our communities further.

IIO Investigates Death of Man after Release from Custody

The Independent Investigations Office (IIO) is investigating the death of a man who was struck and killed by a vehicle shortly after being released from police custody in Surrey on September 14, 2019. The IIO reports that the man was walking near 152 Street and 56 Avenue when he was struck by a vehicle a bit after 10:30 PM. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The IIO is investigating what role police actions or inactions might have played in the man’s death.

Surrey Board of Trade Copaganda: Police Officer of the Year Awards

Policing has always been founded in and serves the function of protecting and reproducing capitalist markets, unequal distribution of resources, and conditions of profitability. So it is no surprise that businesses promote the cops (whose mandate they actually drive) who serve them.

On Thursday, October 10, 2019, the Surrey Board of Trade is holding the 23^rd of its copaganda “Surrey Police Officer of the Year Awards” to thank the cops in Surrey who have best served business in harassing and punishing poor and homeless people, surveilling and regulating racialized, Indigenous, working class people and communities, making parents fearful of their children, stoking fear politics, and generally making Surrey safe for capitalism. This in a city where police have killed at least two people and shot at least one more, this year alone.

Details of this copaganda exercise are as follows:

Name: October 10, 2019 - 23rd Annual Surrey Police Officer of the Year Awards

Date: October 10, 2019

Time: 6:00 PM - 9:30 PM PDT

Location:

Sheraton Vancouver Guildford Hotel

15269 104 Avenue, Surrey

The cost to attend is $105 + tax, so it is clearly designed for regular folks.

It would be a real shame if people showed up to demonstrate against this obscene spectacle of authoritarianism, state violence, subjugation, and the massive waste of needed public resources on police rather than communities.

Labour and Policing: Conversations on Policing Sex Work and Labour Movements (An Anti-Police Power Surrey Panel)

Anti-Police Power Surrey (APPS) is hosting a panel, “Labour and Policing: Conversations on Policing Sex Work and Labour Movements.”

At Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Surrey Campus (Unceded Coast Salish territories).

Wednesday, September 11, 2019. 7-10

Fir Building, Room 128

Speakers include:

Mary Shearman (Simon Fraser University). “Histories of Policing and Sex Work.”

Eva Ureta (APPS). “On Histories of Police Associations and On Current Policing in Surrey.”

C. Sano (Canadian Union of Postal Workers). “Labour Movements and Union Busting in Canada.”

Jeff Shantz (APPS and KPU Faculty). “On the Political Functions of Policing.”

Anti-Police Power Surrey (APPS) is a group of people living and working in Surrey who oppose the domination of police, police violence and repression, and the wasteful, and wildly disproportionate, expenditure of public resources on policing in Surrey. APPS calls for social resources for communities not cops, for people not police and aims for the development of non-repressive social supports and care.

“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