Police fatally shoot Surrey mother who couldn't speak English

Global is reporting that "Family and friends of a woman who was fatally shot by police in Surrey early Thursday morning say they’ve been left with many questions about what happened. RCMP and the Independent Investigations Office (IIO) say police were called to a disturbance at a home on 180A Street near 62 Avenue in Cloverdale. Investigators said the woman had locked herself in a room and was holding an unspecified weapon near a toddler."

"About an hour after Mounties arrived, police shot the woman following an interaction. The child was unhurt. The woman’s church community has identified her as Vanessa Valencia. Members of the Citywide Christ Church are now questioning how the situation was handled. Church pastor Gaston Ntabaza said Valencia’s husband had called 911 after an argument and needed help to calm her down. He said her husband insisted she had no weapon and posed no threat to her one-year-old child." No weapon, no threat. That's important.

"Neighbours told Global News they heard multiple commands being yelled including “drop the knife,” and “drop the scissors,” adding the situation went on for at least 30 minutes before the deadly shots were fired." There was plenty of time to react.

Was she holding a knife? Was she holding scissors? It reminds us of when the police start yelling stop resisting when they have someone down to justify giving them the boots when they aren't resisting. Was she holding a weapon or not? Was there a threat to the child or not?

"Valencia’s pastor said she had experienced a mental health crisis the day before she died, prompting police to look for her Wednesday evening after friends called 911 to report she had thoughts of suicide." If someone is threatening to commit suicide, you don't shoot them dead. None of us were there but there are different versions of this tragedy.

"Friends told Global News they don’t know if Valencia, a recant arrival from Colombia, even knew what was going on during the confrontation with police. 'Vanessa has zero, zero English communication skills,' Ntabaza said."

That is key. The police get all bent out of shape when a suspect won't immediately obey their direct command. It's a bit Dr Phil. In this situation the mother couldn't speak English and couldn't understand their direct command like the tragic RCMP taser incident at the Vancouver Airport.

All accounts say the stand off lasted a long time. There is not reason the police could have requested to have someone eon scene that spoke Spanish. That would have been a huge help. The husband said the police have de-escalation skills but do they? They should. I think we need more training in that. When I was with the Guardian Angels that was a big part of what we did.

We'd going in an help calm things down. Sebastian Metz was an expert at that. He was very good at diffusing situation. If it was an active violent situation he'd rush in and push people apart, but then he would also know what to say when to calm things down. He was also very good at calming things down before they got violent. That's an important part of police work and we need more training and more emphasis on it. The current policing model is they go in and out fast to deal with the situation and that isn't always the best approach.