The video of a police intervention near a Laval high school for death threats against a student has sparked a lot of reactions on social networks.
Many wonder if excessive force was deployed to intercept the young people involved in this story.
The event would have occurred at lunchtime last Tuesday at the English-speaking secondary school Laval Senior Academy.
A 15-year-old allegedly went to the woods near the school when, he said, three other teenagers, ages 16, 17 and 18, started throwing rocks and branches at him and spitting on him.
The police were contacted and reportedly received information that one of the youths was armed with a knife and possibly a firearm.
In all, about thirty police officers were dispatched to the scene, including the canine squad.
In the video, we can see the police, weapons drawn, surround a young person and ask him to kneel.
A girl mentioned to them that he does not speak French and asks them to speak to him in English.
After telling them he didn’t understand, the boy finally complied and got down on one knee.
Questioned by TVA Nouvelles, the Laval Police Service (SPL) indicated that this intervention was carried out in the right way.
“The police were called following very violent gestures against a teenager threatened with death. They were responding to a call for a man armed with a knife and possibly a gun. The intervention was carried out according to the rules of the art, ”said Stéphanie Beshara, spokesperson for the SPL.