Does It Really Take Four Cops And Three Gunshots To Subdue a Homeless Man?

I really should’ve titled this post, Four cops turn busy Downtown intersection into the OK Corral.  They deserve nothing less. However, I may just get myself arrested or sued for that these days the way things are going. You just never know.

Yesterday morning, cops found a 40 year old homeless man, Mario Hamel, near the intersection of St-Denis and Ste-Catherine at around 6:30AM yesterday morning, making a mess with the garbage in the area: some say he was overturning garbage cans; some say he was simply rifling through it, cops say he was using a knife to cut through garbage bags.  I know, in the grand scheme of things, who cares what he was doing to the garbage, right? Well, it’s an example as to how inconsistent both the media, the cops and their mouthpieces have been since the story broke.

A few hours after the shooting, a Surete du Quebec spokesman came out said that Hamel had even supposedly ‘threatened someone he knew’. Although, that last blurb was from yesterday’s paper and no one has made further mention of that alleged ‘threat’. I don’t it’s true.  In fact, everything I’ve been hearing and reading about this sordid mess is full of inconsistencies–from what exactly Hamel was doing to have gotten the cops attention to the actual shooting deaths of Hamel and 36-year-old Patrick Limoges.

And no, M. Limoges was not Mario Hamel’s companion. In fact, up until that shooting, Patrick Limoges and Mario Hamel didn’t even know each other.   Patrick Limoges was an Hvac specialist at St-Luc’s hospital who was simply commuting to work that fateful morning, by bicycle, on the other side of St-Denis street.

Before I continue with this story, I’d like to correct the CBC here. Their latest entry on this tragedy indicated that Patrick Limoges was “caught in the crossfire”. Uh CBC, that’s wrong. If Limoges were caught in the crossfire, as you so put it, that would mean he would’ve been smack in the middle of the four cops and Mario Hamel.  That was not the case, as you know, because, you’ve covered the story since earlier this morning. Patrick Limoges was clear on the other side of St-Denis from where the four cops were chasing and shooting at Hamel. Limoges, as it was established, was riding his bike  to his place of work at St-Luc’s Hospital and was just about a block away when he was shot.  Witnesses had seen the two bodies across the street from each other.

This is, indeed, not only a tragic story, but also, a very twisted story, and another example of why police need to be held to account.  And enough of this bull-shit of the Surete de Quebec investigating the Montreal cops and vice versa whenever they shoot people.  It’s enough!

Mario Hamel, a homeless man who had been staying at the Eugenie Bernier rooming house, a facility affiliated with Accueil Bonneau-Welcome Hall Mission, had been known to have mental health issues, which is typical of many homeless people.  Though the workers in the home seemed concerned that he was refusing to see a doctor over these issues, they said he was making some progress. They also said that he was never physically agressive with staff or the other clients in the home.

Apparently, Hamel was wielding a knife and again,  this depends on what you read. this account from yesterday’s Montreal Gazette, says that the police did wrestle him to the ground and most others who say they simply ‘confronted him’ and others who say the cops were chasing him south on St-Denis, when three shots were fired: two on Hamel and one which richocheted, somehow, across the street, into Patrick Limoge’s neck.

I dunno about you, boys ‘n’ girls, but a lot of questions have been flying through my mind since this happened and as this story continues to unfold.  First of all,  are four cops, supposedly trained, for agitated suspects with knives,  needed for one homeless man?  Even if Hamel was running away from them,  none of the four could’ve caught him? That’s pathetic! Really! Cops in worse physical shape than one homeless man who is probably not in the best of health due to all the joys homeless life has to offer.

It’s bad enough the four cops went gun happy on Hamel, but that so-called ‘stray bullet’ (yes, the media’s new favourite catch phrase,  boys ‘n’ girls, ‘stray bullet’; stupid, innit?) that somehow ended up across the street in Patrick Limoges’s neck? Wow! I gotta say about that cop who shot that bullet,   to say his aim really sucks, would be an under statement.

His co-workers appear to be quite reluctant to talk to the media at this time, but most of them are in a state of shock and felt that any one of them could of been killed at that moment.  Although, one of them did make a statement.

“It’s very hard on everyone. We’re all asking why, and did police do their job correctly?” said Odette Caouillette, who works at the hospital.

You do right to ask that question, Mme Caouillette

“When you come in to work, you come in to work — not to die on a sidewalk,” said Gilles Girard, a colleague and union rep at the Hopital St-Luc.

“Why did police open fire?” asked Claude Talbot, a colleague and union official. “Why couldn’t they control the suspect? If police open fire in a place like downtown Montreal, a stray bullet can do so much damage

That’s another thing, anyone who knows that part of Downtown Montreal knows that it’s pretty busy even at 6:30AM. Universite de Quebec a Montreal is there, as well as several exits to the Berri-UQAM metro station, shops, restaurants and other businesses.  St-Luc Hospital is just down St-Denis at the corner of Rene-Levesque, surrounded by office buildings, business and apartment buildings.   People are awake, and are either headed to work or back home from a grave yard shift, perhaps even stopping for a quick breakfast. In the midst of all that are a lot of homeless people and junkies as there are shelters, transition homes, and soup kitchens in the area.   Imagine how busy it can get at 7:00 AM, 8:00AM, etc. My point is that I shudder to think how many more people could’ve been hurt or killed by those cops running around shooting at this homeless man, given one of their shots hit an innocent commuter, clear across the street? That is what pisses me off.  How they practically turned that busy part of St-Denis into the OK Corral at the beginning of morning rush hour.  And over what? Some mentally ill homeless man who was making a mess of the garbage along Ste-Catherine St.

Of course, many are still not getting it, as some, unofficially, of course, muse what if the cops had been able to have used a stun gun on Mario Hamel? Would it have saved both the lives of  he and Patrick Limoges.  The answer to that is not necessarily, as we’ve seen with Robert Dziekanski. What’s scary about the scenario they’re talking about in the article above is what if they couldn’t have aimed it properly? Indeed. How many others would’ve been hurt then, including Patrick Limoges?

To add insult to injury, our esteemed public security minister, Robert Dutil (are all public security ministers this stupid???) has come out in full support of Montreal’s finest.

Public Security Minister Robert Dutil says only 60 police officers — out of 15,000 across Quebec — ever fire a weapon in an average year.

“So it happened (with) only one of 200 policemen each year,” Dutil told reporters in Quebec City.

“A police officer in his career is very unlikely to have fired a gun. What I’m trying to say is there’s no pattern.

“I believe they’re well-trained. I believe they’re well equipped. I believe they do their best. Unfortunately, in a society like ours, this kind of thing happens. We wish it wouldn’t.”

yyyeah! Ok, Robbiee! Now, is that what you’re going to tell the family of Patrick Limoges? Do you really think they’re going to see it that way?

Could this be the time Montrealers say “enough!” to the  SQ investigating Montreal’s finest?? Seems that the Police shooting probe is getting slammed.

Police shooting probe system criticized

Police accountability in Quebec has come under fire in the wake of a handful of deadly police shootings in past years.

One of the most high-profile cases involved Fredy Villanueva, an 18-year-old Montrealer who was shot dead in 2008 in a parkside confrontation with two local officers. In the Villanueva case, provincial police were asked to investigate the incident and concluded the Montreal officers acted appropriately.

A separate coroner’s inquiry into the Villanueva shooting has yet to release its findings.

Since Villanueva’s death, community activists and the province’s own ombudsman have called for a major overhaul of the way police investigate injuries and deaths during their operations.

Unlike a handful of provinces, including British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario, Quebec does not have an independent, civilian-run agency with the authority to investigate cases in which police actions result in injury or death. Under the current system, police investigators from one force probe incidents of civilian injury involving other forces.

In a 2010 report, Quebec ombudsman Raymonde Saint-Germain urged the province to create a stand-alone, civilian investigative unit, instead of allowing police to investigate each other.

“This is the only way to get the confidence of the population and to have a process that is credible and impartial,” Saint-Germain said at the time.

You got that Robbie? What say ya? even the blue conservative west gets it.  Why don’t we?  If this incident isn’t the straw that broke the camel’s back, what would it take? When a crowd of people get shot up by the boys in blue?

As for your comment about your cops being ‘well trained’, Robbie, I think  the fact that a) it took four to chase down one mentally ill middle-aged homeless man and b) they felt the need to draw their firearms to subdue this homeless man, while not even taking care to ensure public safety in the area and c) the fact that a bullet managed somehow to land in the neck of an innocent commuter across the street proves otherwise. Plus, they’re obviously still very ill-equipped when it comes to those with mental health issues.

According to University of Ottawa criminologist, Michael Kempa,   doesn’t seem to recall any time when an innocent bystander was killed by police fire in Canada.

An anti-police march was planned for this evening, but I have no idea if it took place as there was a pretty bad thunderstorm.

Earlier this afternoon, Patrick Limoges’s co-workers would take a break from their work to go to the sidewalk where he was shot, to bring flowers, some written messages of farewell to a well liked employee who was quick with a joke and held a memorial service for him.

My heart goes out to the families and friends of both Patrick Limoges and Mario Hamel.  I really do hope that Quebec changes the way cop shootings are investigated; to make our police forces more accountable to the public, because as it is, as time goes on, I do find them way too reliant on their firearms.