The sister of a woman fatally shot by police in Surrey, B.C., in September says she’s still waiting for information from the investigation into the deadly incident.
Vanessa Renteria Valencia, a Colombian newcomer to Canada, died in the early morning hours of Sept. 19, 2024, after being shot during a confrontation with the Surrey RCMP.
Mounties say they were called to reports of a disturbance in the area. At the time, police said that a woman had reportedly locked herself in a room with a toddler and was holding a weapon near the child.
Speaking with Global News through an interpreter, her sister Sandra Renteria said she “still has so many questions” about how the incident was handled.
Get daily National news
Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.
“(My) niece doesn’t have a mother, and she had to witness her mother being killed,” she said.
“Since the incident … her eyes are, they used to have a light, and now she looks very sad.”
B.C.’s civilian police watchdog, the Independent Investigations Office (IIO), is probing the actions of police that night, but is keeping tight-lipped about any details of that investigation.
“No determinations have been made. The file continues to be investigated, we continue to hold regular meetings on it,” IIO spokesperson Simon Druker said.
In the months leading up to her death, support workers said the 37-year-old mother and her daughter spent two months in a shelter because of abuse.
Sandra told Global News that the day before her sister was shot, Vanessa had phoned her to say she was having problems.
“She was very stressed,” she said.
Sandra said she is convinced her sister was protecting her daughter, and would never hurt the girl.
She said she wants to know whether police had access to someone with specialized training handling mental health crises, and whether they had a Spanish interpreter, adding that her sister did not speak English.
For now, the family is waiting for the IIO investigation to conclude. The IIO could not provide a timeline, only saying that the investigation is extremely complex.
–with files from Rumina Daya
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.