Tag: montreal police

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News

Lawyer speaks out alleging Montreal police racially profiled his client following a stop and search over his jacket

“I’m confident that if [he] were white, that interception would not have been the same way,” said Fernando Belton

On Jan. 17, Andy Basora was stopped by two police officers in front of his house in Villeray–Saint-Michel for wearing a red North Face jacket similar to one reported stolen over a month ago. A video of this incident was filmed and posted on social media, where it went viral.

Basora’s lawyer Fernando Belton explained that before the video was taken, Basora was walking home from the pharmacy with his brother when he saw a police car driving in the opposite direction.Then, the police car made a U-turn and approached Basora as he was entering his home.

The video begins with two officers approaching Basora. One officer, who wasn’t wearing a mask, tells him to follow them. When Basora asks why, the officer informs the young man that he is wearing a jacket that has been reported stolen. He then grabs him by the shoulder, brings him in front of the police car, and starts going through his pockets and asking questions.

According to Belton, the encounter lasted five minutes before the police officers realized Basora was not responsible for the theft. Belton claims that his client, who is of Dominican ethnicity, was subject to racial profiling.

“There’s the official answer from the police department, and there’s actually what you see on the video, which I think speaks clearly about the real motive of the interception,” Belton pointed out.

“I’m confident that if Andy were white, that interception would not have been the same way,” he added.

In a Twitter thread, Montreal police explained that the jacket Basora was wearing is the same as the one stolen during a violent mugging on Dec. 19, 2020. The tweets also explain the events leading to the altercation with Basora and why one officer was not wearing a mask. The SPVM claims that some situations require “quick and immediate intervention,” and wearing a mask is not “always possible.”

The SPVM police did not return a request for comment.

Belton insists that the officers in the video, who are the same officers that originally reported the robbery, had no reason to question his client.

“Does the police officer intercept every young person that they see with a red North Face coat? Which is, by the way, a coat that is really popular among the youth.”

He also highlights that the police officers violated his client’s rights because neither possessed a search warrant, which is necessary to stop someone. Belton emphasizes that there were no legal grounds for this interception other than an opportunity to profile a minority racially.

A recent report commissioned by the city of Montreal in 2019 shows striking evidence of racial profiling by the SPVM. The authors demonstrate that Indigenous people and Black people are between four to five times more likely to be stopped by the police than white people are.

Moving forward, Belton and his client are in the process of filing a complaint to the Quebec Human Rights Commission as well as one to the police ethics board.

 

Archive graphic.

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News

Concordia student files two ethics complaints against five SPVM officers

Student said she felt dismissed and minimized when reporting her harasser to the Montreal police

 

A Concordia University student has filed two ethics complaints against five Montreal police officers over the dismissive treatment she endured while reporting a harassment complaint.

The 30-year-old PhD student Anna* told The Concordian she felt continuously dismissed and disparaged by the SPVM officers.

Over the course of a month, Anna said she made several attempts to report a man who had been stalking and harassing her on the downtown campus.

The Center for Research Action on Race Relations (CRARR) will be assisting Anna with the two complaints filed with the Quebec Police Ethics Commission. According to a statement on the issue released by CRARR, Anna was harassed in October and November of 2019.

“He followed me to coffee shops, and my workplace at Concordia, and would seemingly know my schedule,” said Anna.

She decided to file a formal criminal complaint to police at Station 20 near the downtown campus after the two months of harassment escalated to a physical altercation with the man.

She explained her situation at the station but was told that the officer who would listen to her complaint was busy with an Amazon package theft, and that she had to come back later.

“I had a feeling that there was no sense of triage, there was no sense of the gravity of my situation being taken seriously,” said Anna.

After she returned to the station, this time escorted by a Concordia security guard later that evening, Anna said she had to fill out a document about her complaint behind a glass window sitting in a waiting room chair.

She said this process took hours of back and forth with the officers, who asked her to describe details such as what her harasser was wearing, what time of day the incidents occurred, and what was said.

When she described to the supervising officer what the man looked like, Anna said the officer responded, “Sounds like a good looking man, why don’t you go on a date with him?”

“I was really shocked at this callous and offensive conduct,” said Anna.

After filing her complaint, she told an officer that she was scared, and asked to be escorted home. The officer dismissed Anna’s request, asking her if the attacker was at her home “right now,” and if she had any friends or family that could help her instead.

“Instead of supporting vulnerable women, who already self-identify as ‘I’m in trouble, I’m vulnerable’ there’s a sense of ‘we can’t help you, go find some friends, why don’t you call your family.’”

Anna is not originally from Montreal, and said she didn’t have a support system she could rely on at the time.

A few days later, Anna said she was terrified to be walking home from class at night, only to find the door to her apartment already open. She called 911, but the police officers took over an hour to arrive. The officers then gave Anna a document for her to fill out her complaint report, again.

The officers told Anna she would have to follow up with her complaint at the police station near the downtown campus, where it was initially filed.

After they left, Anna said she felt she needed to know more about her harasser. She decided to research about him online after obtaining information on her harasser from a police document. That’s when Anna found out he had a history of sexual assault.

“It hit me at that moment, that the police had a record of him and yet still did nothing to protect me, or even inform me of his record.”

Afraid for her safety, Anna went to the police station and waited for hours at the detention centre for a detective to look at her case.

“I was too afraid to go home,” she said.

On several occasions, Anna said when she tried to communicate in English about her case with the SPVM, officers were reluctant or outright dismissive of her case.

Anna described trying to follow up on nine separate occasions, and officers would hang up on her, or walk away from her at the station. On one occasion, she said she called and spoke to a supervising officer about her case only to have him say “tabarnak” and hang up on her.

“Being minimized, being laughed at, and not being taken seriously, and to have to chase the police down for my own safety, all of these are barriers to access to justice for women like me.”

Executive Director of the CRARR Fo Niemi, who is assisting Anna with her case, says this is the first time he has seen a case like this.

“We haven’t seen something so blatantly egregious like this, especially in terms of the very offensive comments that she got at the police station, and the fact that she had to run after police officers and the police department and after [reaching out] several times in order to get at least somebody to call back,” said Niemi.

According to Niemi, Anna’s two police ethics complaints involve incidents which occurred at the SPVM police station, and the incident in which the officers came to her apartment after it was broken into.

What concerns Niemi is not only the treatment Anna endured, but whether this is a systemic issue.

“If accessing a police department or police services involves this kind of reaction and conduct, you can imagine how many women may not even go to the police for fear of not being taken seriously and not being believed.”

SPVM spokesperson Jean-Pierre Brabant says the SPVM could not comment on the ongoing investigation.

*to protect the subject’s identity, we are using a pseudonym.

 

Graphic by @the.beta.lab

 

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Opinions

Montreal police protest needs to end

Graphic by Thom Bell

Why the camouflage clown pants are undermining the police’s credibility

Quebec Public Security Minister Martin Coiteux unveiled a 38-point action plan to reform Montreal’s police department on March 29, according to CBC News. Parts of this action plan includes changing the organization’s structure to encourage collaborative leadership, and requiring police officers to stop wearing camouflage pants and resume dressing in their proper uniform.

Montreal police officers have been protesting cuts to their pension plan for almost three years now. According to the Montreal Gazette, the protest began in July 2014 in opposition to a Quebec pension plan reform that would affect 65,000 public sector employees. Since police, firefighters and public transport employees are essential to the city, they were prohibited from taking a day off work to protest. Instead, they decided to embarrass the government by not wearing their proper uniform as a form of protest. Now, this has become more of an embarrassment to the police department as it has been going on for far too long.
As with any profession, the way we dress is not only representative of ourselves, but also of the company we work for. For the police, a uniform is essential to ensure citizens can identify a police officer when assistance is needed.

A uniform also sends a message of professionalism and credibility. How can the police force expect us to take them seriously if they are dressed this way?

According to CBC News, in July 2016, SPVM officer Nathalie Dagenais caught a man named Marc-Olivier Caron speeding and asked him to pull over. Caron slowed down instead of pulling over, because he didn’t recognize Dagenais as an officer—she was wearing camouflage pants and a bright yellow vest.

The officer gave him two tickets: one for speeding and another for dangerous driving, since Caron slowed down as opposed to fully stopping, and Dagenais had to “move at the last second,” according to CBC News. Caron contested the second charge, and the judge sided with him. The judge said Caron’s reaction was reasonable because Dagenais was not dressed like a police officer. The judge ended up revoking the $1,200 fine. This is a perfect example of how the police officers’ protest is affecting their work—they’re not even being recognized as police officers when patrolling roadways.
Right now, police authority is being undermined because people do not take them seriously in their camouflage, fluorescent-coloured pants. It’s about time Coiteux is implementing change within the police community in order for them to regain the respect of the city.

But truthfully, the camouflage pants are just one part of a larger issue: the credibility of Montreal’s police force is gradually deteriorating. Today, the police force is plagued with issues of racial profiling, questionable internal investigations and tapping journalists’ phones. Despite being trained to protect us, I don’t feel protected knowing there are other motives and ideas in the minds of the police force.

The Montreal police department represents the city and notions of protection and responsibility. When we are in trouble, we are told to call the police. When we need help, we are told to call the police. When we feel threatened, we are told to call the police. Yet, the Montreal police have become something of a laughingstock in the eyes of citizens. The government trusts the police to ensure the city is protected, and the safety of the citizens are supposed to be their number-one priority. The police are supposed to be symbols of the law, but it’s hard to keep faith in them when they are dressed in clown pants and conducting unprofessional and sometimes unlawful acts.

Graphic by Thom Bell

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