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It’s been more than 48 hours since the shooting deaths of forty year old homeless man, Mario Hamel and ventilation specialist, Patrick Limoges at the hands of Montreal’s finest in what looks like, from where I, and where many others are sitting, an sheer act of recklessness with their firearms in morning rush hour on St-Denis between Ste-Catherine and Rene-Levesque. The Surete du Quebec, who, as usual, is investigating this motley crew of four, have yet to interview them. In fact, not only have they not been interviewed, they only started investigating the crime scene today, two days after the fact; after a thunderstorm with heavy winds and rains washed and blew everything away, after much traffic had time to pass over it. Hell, a brief memorial service was held during the day for Patrick Limoges yesterday and yes, the much larger promised anti-police march did come out in full force and all marched and stopped at the scene where it all took place. In other words, it don’t really take a forensic genious to know that whatever evidence was left, would’ve been washed away, trampled on, blew away, contaminated. Don’t get why the SQ dragged its’ feet? You’re not alone, some observers just west of us in Ontario don’t neither.
That’s something Ontario’s independent special investigations unit doesn’t understand.
They say the best evidence is the freshest.
“We ask for an interview right away, and if it can’t be done right away, certainly within 24 hours,” a spokesman said.
A former local cop thinks it’s time to modernize too.
Former homicide detective Steve Roberts said it’s time for an independent review board to investigate incidents involving police officers.
“We’re 2011,” he said. “It’s time for a civilian review board, not that it’s going to do anything different, but it looks more transparent for the population when one police force isn’t investigating another.”
Our esteemed Public Safety Minister, Robert Dutil seems to be open to the idea, but wants to wait for the long awaited coroner’s report on the 2008 police shooting of Fredy Villanueva. For our readers outside of La Belle province who don’t know about the Fredy Villanueva shooting of 2008, I will give you a brief background.
On the evening of August 9, 2008, in a Montreal-North park, eighteen year old, Fredy Villanueva’s older brother, Dany, was playing an illegal game of dice. Two police officers,Jean-Loup Lapointe and Stephanie Pilotte stopped by to break it up and a struggle ensued. Fredy was in the middle of it, and Lapointe brandished his weapon and fired shots, killing Fredy and injuring two others. Fredy was unarmed.
As usual, the SQ was sent in to investigate Lapointe and Pilotte. Like with the Hamel/Limoges shootings two days ago, they never interviewed Pilotte and Lapointe, but rather, simply relied on their reports. Yeah, real good investigative work there. There was a public enquiry, but Lapointe was never charged. The coroner’s report, as I’ve mentioned, has yet to be released.
Coroner André Perreault’s report has been delayed by legal challenges launched in Quebec Superior Court by the city of Montreal and the Montreal police department.
Geneviève Guilbault, spokesperson for the Quebec coroner’s office, said that once there is a court ruling on the legal challenge, Perreault will decide when the report will be released. It remains unclear when the challenge will be decided.
“It is difficult for us to say,” Guilbault said.
I bet! Somebody’s got some ‘splainin’ to do!
The 64, 000$ question is, will we ever see it? And does Robert Dutil even want it to see the light of day? Me thinks the absence of the Villanueva coroner’s report is a tad too conveeeenient for M. Dutil. Anyway, he’s a waitin’ for that report before a decidin’ what to do. That’s his story and he’s a stickin’ to it.
However, he makes a valid point about Ontario’s SIU being far from perfect. Not sure if he meant the dastardly G20 mass arrests of last summer, but the article in The Montreal Gazette sure does.
The SIU has been criticized because its investigations into alleged police brutality during G20 protests in Toronto last summer have been inconclusive.
And a 2008 report by Ontario Ombudsman André Marin found that delays by police in reporting incidents and in granting the SIU interviews with witness officers compromised the integrity of the SIU’s investigative process.
Marin complained that “the thin blue line,” as he termed police unions, “take control of the situation. … They will defend and protect members regardless of whether or not they believe that person has committed a wrongdoing.”
I understand the problem, but since this is a group composed of civilians, why are they afraid of the police unions? Why can’t they just say no to them? And can’t Ontario correct their own problems with their independent civilian Special Investigations Unit? Perhaps if we, in La Belle Province created our own, we can learn from those mistakes. I still have to say that anything at this point is better than our system of police investigating police.
Another police shooting that smelled of cover up was the December 1, 2005 shooting of Mohamed Anas Bennis. Twenty-five year old Mohamed Anas Bennis was walking home from evening prayers from his mosque when he was shot, not once, but twice, by police officer, Yannick Bernier, who was on patrol with Jonathan Roy. It had been alleged that Bennis was wielding a knife at them, however, when asked, the police could never produce the alleged knife. While coroners Louis Nolet and Catherine Rudel-Tessier did want to have a coroner’s inquest, the Montreal Policeman’s Brotherhood (union) had blocked every effort, including seeking injunctions through the courts.
A group, Justice for Anas Coalition, has been working tirelessly to find answers; a coroner’s inquest for Bennis; justice. You can find out more about their efforts here.
There have been a grand total of 285 investigations in La Belle province since 1999 and only 3 recommendations to lay charges against their colleagues. This is the system ol’ Robbie Dutil is actually endorsing, boys ‘n’ girls. Opposition parties out there, you may want to take notes there (never too early to prepare election campaign platform), propose changes for police accountability and scrap that whole police investigating police thing, here. You’d be surprised–the electorate might just start paying attention!
Raymonde St-Germain, Quebec’s ombudsman has also written a report slamming police on police investigations and how they basically ‘leave the appearance of bias’. Ya don’t say, Ray?
Gee, racial profiling, trigger happy cops, lack of accountability, laughable cop on cop investigations, cops unions obstructing justice, and folks wonder why there are these anti-police brutality demonstrations in the streets of Montreal? As for those business owners who had windows smashed by last night’s demonstration, why don’t you also start lobbying for an accountable police force that is better trained and less trigger happy? Perhaps you’ll find the neighbourhood more peaceful.
Great write-up, CJ. To answer your question about why the civilian oversight body is not so rigorous, look to the Toronto example. Henry Aubin’s column in today’s Gazette mentioned the great majority of investigators on that body are former cops:
A series of articles in the Toronto Star last fall found that over the past 20 years the agency has performed not so differently from Quebec’s own system: investigators are questionably quick to clear officers, and prosecutors also fail to pursue cases energetically.
Of the outfit’s 54 full-time and part-time investigators, 47 were ex-police officers.
A counterpart agency in Quebec would probably have to draw most of its manpower from a similar retiree pool.
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/death+that+should+catalyst/4922797/story.html#ixzz1OsZECIJ0
I imagine Frasier’s dad. Even a good man would be conflicted and pressured to at least go easy on his former “brothers”. Serpico was a true story, and just how different is one police force from any other, really?
No, I would prefer if an army investigate unit could be brought in. They would have authority and a more arm’s length approach, assuming they have the expertise to carry out such investigations. At least they would presumably have fewer personal and professional ties with the officers.
Scott in Montreal Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 9:54 AM
sorry for getting your handle wrong, ck. (Why was I thinking “cj?”) And it should be “investigative unit”. Man, I could work for the CBC.
ck Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 10:26 AM
Why not, if Evan Solomon can…
ck Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 10:01 AM
I liked Marty Crane! Actually, Eddie was also a cool sidekick.
You’re probably on to something about that military investigation. Military police. They’re not, nor were they ever bound by police unions, therefore, would be unimpressed by their coercions. But, hell, you know what would happen, don’t you? The propoganda machine, stirring up the tea-baggiest of sensativities!! Your taxes will go up! And manpower will be wasted when they could be fighting perfectly good wars overseas, fighting terrorists who are terrorizing the world… well, you get the idea, but it would make good use of our military police. The most impartial investigations and guaranteed there would be more convictions.
If ever there was a case that screamed for police officers to lose their jobs and yes, to be charged, it was this bumbling gang of four who turned St-Denis street into the OK Corral, killing Mario Hamel and Patrick Limoges
Ya, I looked up Mario Hamel on google, just to see the other side of him, after I read on the CTV website “A small group of mourners gathered in Montreal on Saturday to remember Hamel, a 40-year-old mentally ill, homeless man who lived in a downtown shelter.”
Is that any respect for anyone to be remembered? I hate the way people just bash, andor turn a blind eye to, the homeless, mentally ill, killed babies… The vanerable population… So why I’m writting here,
ck Reply:
June 13th, 2011 at 9:16 AM
It’s not for nothing that too often the homeless are discounted; society’s forgotten people. Nobody realizes that more often than not, they weren’t always the way that way. They had families, friends. They had jobs, often careers, an education, even. Of course, they had homes. They had lives.
It often doesn’t take much for it to all spiral out of control. An illness, mental or physical. Loss of job. A divorce. Estrangement. An addiction of some kind. A mistake. Often more than one of the above. One little misstep can lead to a chain of events to lead someone down that beaten path.
I wasn’t surprised that Mario Hamel too, would’ve had a funeral service of some kind, and not just amongst his homeless companions or those he roomed with at the shelter or those who worked with him at the shelter. The articles did say he was only homeless for about a few years, after the divorce from his wife. He had about three or four kids. Indication that there was a family of some kind in the world somewhere.
As much as I feel terrible for the family, friends and colleagues of Patrick Limoges, who really didn’t deserve his fate, I also feel terrible for the children of Mario Hamel, who more than likely never got a chance to say good-bye or have any kind of closure with their father.