The mother of an Island woman killed by police in New Brunswick five years ago says inviting Victoria’s police chief to speak at a memorial for her daughter led to a bond that has helped her deal with the loss.
Martha Martin, mother of Chantel Moore, told the story at an event Tuesday at the Victoria police station on Caledonia Avenue, where Martin presented pins to members of a special mental-health team.
Moore, who had lived in Port Alberni, was 26 when she was shot by an officer at her apartment in Edmonston, New Brunswick, in June of 2020. Police had gone to the apartment for a wellness check because of concerns someone had been stalking her.
Martin said after the 2021 memorial at the legislature, she and Chief Del Manak had conversations about what had happened to her daughter.
Along the way, she said she gradually came to the realization that her anger over losing her daughter — and five months later son Mike Martin, who was found dead in a cell in the Surrey Pretrial Centre — wasn’t going to solve anything.
“It’s not being angry that’s going to move us anywhere forward,” said Martin, adding it was hard to take the step to work with police, but it’s been worth it. “I do the work in honour of my daughter and my son, to fight for positive change.
“This is something that we can all address together.”
One positive change is the creation of the Victoria Police Co-Response Team, or CRT, where officers team up with nurses to respond to calls with a mental-health component. West Shore RCMP has a similar unit.
“I’ve been very lucky to have made that connection with the chief here in Victoria,” Martin said. “I was very fortunate the chief was so open.”
On Tuesday, fighting tears, Martin presented Manak and members of mental-health teams in Victoria and the West Shore with pins in the shape of a yellow dress — yellow was Moore’s favourite colour — and marked with her initials.
The CRT, launched in 2023, is composed of two units each made up of an officer and a nurse.
Manak said that when the effort to develop a new unit got underway, he told Martin that she was “my driving force and my inspiration.”
“What she really wanted was for there to be better outcomes with mental health.”
CRT member Const. Tristan Williams told the gathering that the police-nurse combination has made a real difference.
“I would say the biggest success over the past two years has been just the access to the mental-health professional, and the breadth and depth of experience that the nurses bring to the teams.”
He cited one case where he and his nurse partner were called to do a well-being check by someone concerned about a cousin with an unspecified psychotic disorder.
Williams said there was very little information other than that, but the nurse was able to access the cousin’s electronic-health record during the call.
The officer said that he hadn’t seen any obvious problems with the person, but it turned out they had not been taking their prescribed anti-psychotic medicine.
Resolving that situation helped the person stabilize, he said.
Martin, who is originally from Tofino and lived in Victoria for a time, said her hope is that other mothers can avoid what she has had to go through. She said she will keep pushing for more units like the CRT — even if she has to do it one police detachment at a time.
Martin said she wants to make change “and not be in that angry place.”
“The love for our children should be greater than the hate.”
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