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Expert says N.B. police officer who fatally shot woman was right to use lethal force

May 19, 2022, Fredericton, N.B. – An expert in Canadian policing says the New Brunswick officer who killed a 26-year-old Indigenous woman during a wellness check two years ago was following police training.

Chris Butler told a coroner’s inquest today that Edmundston Police Force Const. Jeremy Son had to use lethal force when Chantel Moore advanced toward him with a knife on the morning of June 4, 2020.

Butler says Moore was only five to seven feet away from the officer on the balcony outside her apartment, adding that she had the ability to inflict grievous harm or death.

Son told the inquest earlier this week that Moore did not respond to his demands to drop the knife and that he shot her four times in rapid succession.

Butler says Son left himself with no exit by backing up on the balcony, but he says it would only be speculation to suggest the outcome would have been different had the officer instead been standing on the stairs.

The five-member coroner’s jury will have the opportunity to make recommendations intended to help prevent future deaths in similar situations.