Possible racist comments made to child in Surrey

SURREY (NEWS 1130) – Mounties in Surrey are investigating a possible case of racism against a nine-year-old girl.

It happened on Sunday at the Superstore on King George Boulevard. RCMP say the child was with their family when a man allegedly the racist comments.

In a video posted to Reddit, a man at a Surrey Superstore confronts another, claiming the other man made the comments to his daughter.

Mounties in #SurreyBC are investigating a possible case of racism against a nine-year-old girl. https://t.co/f7tF7HQDuB pic.twitter.com/ViD2YpH5I9

— CityNews 1130 Vancouver (Inactive) (@news1130) April 14, 2021

“We have viewed the video. We do believe that this is associated to the incident that we’re investigating,” Sgt. Elenore Sturko said.

“It’s easy for people to see that the family members of the child are very angry and upset. And it’s understandable that they would be upset, based on the alleged comments that were directed towards the child,” she added.

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The man accused of making the comments is known to police, who say they are trying to get more evidence and speak to witnesses.

“It’s an understandably upsetting incident for the child and their family, so we have engaged our Victim Services. We want the community to know that we don’t accept this type of behaviour … it’s not tolerated,” Sturko said.

She says investigators plan to recommend charges, it’s unclear what those charges may be.

MORE: Sgt. Elenore Sturko w/@SurreyRCMP tells me this involves events that happened at a Superstore in Newton Sunday. This is believed connected to a video posted to reddit, showing a confrontation between two men, one of whom is wearing a red "Make America Great Again" hat.

— Ria Renouf ???? (@riarenouf) April 13, 2021

If you have any information about the incident, you’re asked to call Surrey RCMP at 604-599-0502 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.

Share with police before social media, RCMP say

Sturko says while it’s important to shine a light on disturbing incidents to ensure that people know they may be happening in their community, Mounties would prefer that it’s first shared with police.

“Particularly, if they capture an incident, it’s important for those [videos] actually to be withheld, at a certain point, from the public. Not forever, but until we at least have the opportunity to take the initial statements. In particular, if they capture things that people say or certain language, or certain actions by individuals, when we take statements we have a harder time ensuring that those statements have come as a result of what a person actually witnessed as opposed to something they may or may not have seen in a video,” she explained.

Sturko insists she is not discouraging that these videos be shared.

“We don’t want to say that we are at all trying to interfere with people’s wishes to be open and transparent about the things that happen in the community,” she said. “But we do want to try and protect our investigation so that when we do find people, we are then able to hold those people accountable because the integrity of the criminal investigation is able to be upheld.”

-With files from Ria Renouf