VICTORIA -- An Indigenous tribal council on Vancouver Island is calling for changes in police conduct after a Tofino woman was shot and killed by an officer in New Brunswick on Thursday.
Chantel Moore, 26, of the Tlaoquiaht First Nation, was the subject of a police wellness check in Edmundston, N.B., when the attending officer shot and killed her.
The police department says Moore confronted the officer with a knife and was making verbal threats.
Moore's family tells CTV News Vancouver Island that she had moved to New Brunswick two months ago to be closer to her daughter.
Moore's grandmother called the police shooting of the Indigenous woman "racially motivated."
The Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, which represents 14 First Nations on Vancouver Island, issued a statement Friday, calling the incident a "senseless shooting by police of a young Indigenous woman."
The council says it has contacted the Edmundston police detachment, seeking "clarification and answers to this untimely and sudden death."
The police department has requested an independent review of the shooting, with the New Brunswick RCMP providing investigative and forensic support.
"We call for action on implementing measures to ensure conduct and police practices are done in a way that de-escalates a situation and to use trauma-informed practice when doing so," the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council said.
"We ask that changes be made to police conduct in this sense to ensure more lives are not lost in this devastating manner."
Police say that an autopsy has been scheduled. Investigators have not released any additional information about the incident, including what sort of threats the woman allegedly made.
