At least one of the suspects arrested Monday for the armed assault of a Collège de Maisonneuve student will face charges, while the Montreal CEGEP defends its decision not to have triggered an alert.
Posted at 3:59 p.m.
An 18-year-old student was injured around 3 p.m. Monday with the help of a “sharp object” which remains to be determined, said spokesperson Véronique Comtois, of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM). Three suspects aged 17, 18 and 19 were arrested outside the College after fleeing.
One of them remained detained and will face charges of obstruction and failure to comply with orders related to previous offences, said Audrey Roy-Cloutier, spokesperson for the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions. (DPCP). The latter carried a knife on him, but the SPVM did not confirm Tuesday that it was the weapon used against the victim. The role of each of the suspects in the attack remains to be clarified.
On site, Tuesday, we saw only one agent – from the firm Best – patrolling the common areas of the establishment of more than 6,500 students. The latter indicated that he was present Monday with another colleague during the attack, but refused to answer more questions, directing us to Pierre Lefebvre, security coordinator. The agent present at the College’s security office did not answer questions from The Pressdirecting us to the establishment’s communications department.
According to College spokeswoman Emilie Laramée, four officers were present during Monday’s attack, including Mr. Lefebvre, and intervened. “The College does not lack agents on site, since the College hires external agents when there is a shortage of permanent employees,” she said. “College security guards continuously patrol the College. Sharing our information with the police enabled the rapid arrest of suspects. »
The students questioned on the spot Tuesday indicated that there had been no form of alert during the attack. Some learned what happened from a message posted on the Omnivox platform on Monday stating that “a college student was rushed to hospital after being assaulted by an individual”, but most told us Says you haven’t seen this message. Others saw the police walk past the cafeteria, but didn’t know what happened until they read the media reports.
“Alerts are triggered in order to warn the College community when a situation threatens the safety of its occupants and therefore requires an evacuation,” said Ms.me Laramee. ” [Lundi], the sequence of events allowed us to confirm very quickly, in collaboration with the police, that it was not a threat to the whole community, but an isolated and targeted altercation. »
“In other cases, the College would not have hesitated to deploy its emergency measures plan, namely to notify the community and evacuate it if necessary,” she added.