While Pauline Marois was celebrating her victory on September 4, 2012, stage technicians served as cannon fodder for a shooter left unattended at the back of the Métropolis. Despite “imminent” threats against the PQ leader, the police did not reinforce security that evening, the lawyer for the survivors pleaded on Thursday.
Posted at 4:30 p.m.
“The police officers of the Sûreté du Québec [SQ] and the Montreal Police Department [SPVM] committed faults of unprecedented gravity during the 2012 election night”, underlined from the outset Mand Virginie Dufresne-Lemire, during her pleadings, the last stage of the civil lawsuit brought by four survivors of the attack.
Guillaume Parisien, Jonathan Dubé, Audrey Dulong-Bérubé and Gaël Ghiringhelli are each claiming $175,000, plus $120,000 in punitive damages, from the SQ and the SPVM because of the deficient security deployed to protect the Parti Québécois rally.
Alcoholism, post-traumatic shock, drugs: the survivors testified to living a nightmare since Richard Henry Bain opened fire in front of them, killing their friend Denis Blanchette and seriously injuring Dave Courage. “Ten years of wasted life”, summed up Mand Dufresne-Lemire.
The lawyer dissected Thursday the deployment of the police. The proof is clear: there was no one behind the Metropolis. Only two SPVM vehicles were in the area, and all the SQ agents were inside the room, except for a handful at the front.
Thus, the SPVM did not respect the “request for assistance” of the SQ and did not assign any police officer to the Metropolis, according to Mand Dufresne-Lemire. “No one was aware that a request for assistance had been made by the SQ,” she pleaded.
A “particularly worrying” threat
A report kept secret by the SQ for a decade made it possible to learn at trial that Pauline Marois had been targeted by six threats on polling day. However, no police officer of the SQ – even the author of the report – kept a memory of it. Judge Philippe Bélanger then summoned the SQ to give him the details of these threats.
We learn today that the first threat, involving a firearm on social networks, was “objectively serious” and “particularly worrying”, according to Ms.and Dufresne-Lemire. “This threat was real, it was imminent, and was not taken into account by anyone,” she insisted.
Moreover, it turns out that those responsible for Pauline Marois’ security and the SQ’s intelligence services were probably made aware of at least three threats against the Prime Minister, even if they said the opposite in front of the judge. “We have serious questions about their testimony,” said Mand Dufresne-Lemire.
In his argument, which began at the end of the day, the lawyer for the City of Montreal argued that the SPVM had taken “special attention” in addition to positioning a patrol car near the Metropolis. Oral arguments will continue on Friday.