Chantel Moore’s daughter Gracie is 11 this year.
“She’s growing. She often talks about her mom and how she misses her,” said Gracie’s grandmother Martha Martin on June 4, 2025, the fifth anniversary of her daughter’s fatal shooting by Edmundson City Police Force Officer Jeremy Son during a wellness check.
“She was six when her mom passed,” said Martin. “She struggled with it for a really long time. She would always ask, ‘When are the angels going to be done with my mom? Can they just send her back now?’”
“There are times when she gets really quiet and it’s in those moments I know that she is missing her mom, and rightfully so,” she adds. “It’s really tough. I’m never going to be able to take her mother’s place.”
Moore was 26 when she was shot and killed at her New Brunswick home.
To honour the memory of her daughter, Martin is walking with family and supporters 33-kilometres from the Tofino-Ucluelet Junction to Tofino’s First Street Dock. Last year when she did the walk, the pain from a leg injury and her personal struggle with mental health had her in tears by the end.
But this year, Martin says she’s in better health – physically and mentally.
“Hopefully it won’t be as hard and as long. I’ve been doing training for the last month. This year I’m more prepared,” Martin told the Ha-Shilth-Sa before setting off north to Tofino.
There are also positive developments within policing services that Martin shared.
“Victoria’s Police Chief Del Manak started a co-response team in honour of my daughter. A couple of weeks ago I was there, and I was able to do a presentation. I put the yellow pin dress on their co-response team,” said Martin.
She offered a “huge applause” to Chief Del Manak for being willing to make change.
Front line RCMP officers are now being equipped with body-worn cameras as part of a national rollout to across Canada's rural, urban and remote locations. The deployment of body-cameras is something the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council has been calling for since Moore’s shooting death in 2020.
“My daughter had a huge part of this,” said Martin.
There is no actual real-time surveillance, police vehicle dash cam or body-worn video camera evidence depicting the actual events of what took place the day Moore was shot four times by Officer Son.
Officer Son was not criminally charged for the shooting death of Moore, and within a few weeks of the tragedy he was back on duty. Martin has a civil lawsuit against the City of Edmundston and Son, with a meeting set for March 2026.
Moore’s auntie Corinne Martin says she misses her niece’s bubbly personality.
“She was so full of life, just her energy. She was just like her mom when she walked into the room, she could get everybody’s attention,” said Corinne, who joined Martin for the journey from the junction to Tofino.
Moore’s family members Hjalmer Wenstob and Timothy Masso performed the Healing Song for Martin before she began to walk on the overcast Wednesday morning.
Five months after Moore’s tragic shooting death, Martin’s son Mike Martin died in police custody.
“I’m keeping her name alive. I will never let the government forget her or my son,” she said.
She went on to note that Hotel Zed Tofino currently has a display up in the lobby that tells Chantel Moore’s story.
“I look at my granddaughter and I see my nieces and nephews and I want to ensure that their future safety - should anyone be pulled over and should anyone need a mental health check - that they will not be shot multiple times. That’s unacceptable,” said Martin.
