The Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) must materialize by the end of the year its commitment to create a “web patrol” to reduce the role of social networks in the proliferation of armed violence in the city, presses the official opposition at City Hall.
“The hour is serious,” dropped the borough councilor in Montreal North, Philippe Thermidor, as part of a press conference held Wednesday morning by the party Together Montreal.
The chosen one was reacting to recent violent crimes in the metropolitan area, which culminated a few days ago with a triple homicide and the death of Abdulla Shaikh, shot dead by the police. Earlier last year, gun violence also claimed 16-year-old Thomas Trudel, 15-year-old Meriem Bendaoui and 16-year-old Jannai Dopwell-Bailey.
“I am in mourning because the violence has taken over our neighborhoods and our families,” continued Mr. Thermidor. There is no normality in the fact that parents bury young people they themselves have brought into the world. »
The role of social networks
The SPVM’s latest annual report, published last June, also reports a 68% increase in the number of files handled last year by its cyber-investigation module, at the very time when crimes against the person involving a weapon at fire swelled by 15.3%. In particular, homicides involving such weapons experienced “a significant increase” last year, underlines this report.
Last March, at the end of the Montreal Forum for the fight against armed violence, the police force undertook to set up a “web patrol”, especially since more and more young people are openly displaying firearms on social networks like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube.
The SPVM then indicated that it wanted to create a “structure” that would ensure “monitoring of social networks and exchange platforms used by young people involved in criminal groups”. This “collaborative tool” could involve police officers as well as social workers and community stakeholders, indicates an explanatory document developed by the police force.
However, we still do not know when this initiative will materialize, lamented on Wednesday the vice-president of the Public Security Commission and elected representative of Ensemble Montreal, Abdelhaq Sari. “It is a patrol that we welcome, but that we want to have quickly”, before the end of the current year, insisted the opposition councilor. A motion will be debated to this effect during the municipal council meeting on August 22.
Mr. Sari also insists that this “web patrol” should not be perceived as “a means of surveillance” by Internet users, but rather “as a means of prevention”. “It’s very important,” he said.
The SPVM did not respond to the To have to at the time these lines were written. Alain Vaillancourt, responsible for public security on the executive committee, for his part indicated in a press briefing that the details of an action plan which aims in particular to tackle crime that originates online will be presented “in the next weeks “.
Ensemble Montréal’s motion also calls for the City and the SPVM to develop “safe spaces for expression to facilitate the expression of young people” who are victims of cybercrime or cyberharassment – by allowing them to chat online with a specialist, for example.
The party also calls for the implementation of an awareness campaign on these issues in public spaces managed by the City, such as libraries, parks and sports centers, but also its websites.
A critical absence
Abdelhaq Sari on the other hand deplored on Wednesday “the total absence” last week of elected officials from Projet Montréal available to react in person to the triple homicide that occurred in Montreal and Laval.
The mayoress, who was traveling in Portugal, according to our information, had rather reacted on social networks to the death of Abdulla Shaikh after a police operation carried out Thursday morning at the Pierre motel, in the borough of Saint-Laurent. .
Mr. Sari also deplored “the total absence of a summer plan” in terms of public safety this summer in Montreal.
“Personally, I was outside the country,” said Mr. Vaillancourt, who was therefore also unavailable to comment on this case last week. However, he assures that a “crisis cell” was set up “quickly” after this triple murder. The City should, however, first of all, let the SPVM do its job before commenting on this file, he argued.
At the executive committee meeting on Wednesday morning, Mayor Valérie Plante said she was “very satisfied” that coroner Géhane Kamel will investigate the three homicides that occurred last week.
The elected official also compared the actions committed by Abdulla Shaikh to those committed by Carl Girouard in Old Quebec on October 31, 2020,
“In both cases, what we realize is that mental health is at the heart of this madness, of what led these people to do horrible things,” added Ms.me Plante, who believes that we must “deal with the systemic causes that can cause people, especially when they can make weapons easily, to take action and kill innocent people as happened last week last “.