Armed violence in Montreal | Another way to curb crime

The SPVM, with its Collective projects, targets young delinquents who are not yet necessarily hardened and tries to bring them back on the right path

The downward trend in gun violence continued in August in Montreal, with 12 events, compared to 16 for the same month in 2022. Since the start of the summer, gunshot events have decreased by more than 31% in the metropolis compared to the same period last year. The Montreal City Police Service (SPVM) fights against armed violence in several ways. This is how projects, called Collectives, were launched at the beginning of the summer.

4:30 p.m., Thursday, September 7. Detective Lieutenant Érik Lavallée and his colleagues knock on the door of a home in the 25^e Avenue, in the Saint-Michel district.

They announced to the three occupants that the boyfriend of one of them, a young man of 24, had just been arrested, and presented them with a search warrant.

In the car in which the young man and an accomplice were apprehended an hour and a half earlier, the police discovered drugs and $1,000 in cash.

A source told them the young man had a gun, but investigators did not find it.

Already accused of vehicle theft and non-compliance with conditions, the young man had obtained his provisional release just two days earlier.

Despite this, coupled with repeat offenses and suspicions of drug trafficking, investigator Lavallée still has hope that the young man will return to the right path.

“We have his parents’ address, he lives on the North Shore. He is young, he is not super criminalized,” he summarizes.

No more silos

It is to fight against armed violence by targeting precisely this type of delinquent who is not yet necessarily hardened that the Police Department of the City of Montreal launched three projects called Collectives last May: one in the northeast of the city, one in the southwest and one in downtown.

While they worked separately in the past, socio-community police officers and investigators are now working hand in hand to try to get young men involved in or suspected of being involved in crimes of armed violence out of crime. mixed.

The SPVM has not invented anything and is inspired by ways of doing things that exist in the United States and elsewhere in the world, those responsible point out.

The Collectives are based on four axes: intelligence, analysis, prevention and investigations, in which the different stakeholders work in synergy and simultaneously.

We start by obtaining information on potential suspects. Two analysts then study this information and provide investigators with names of individuals to target. The police officers from the Narcotics squads and the Multidisciplinary Teams dedicated to firearms (EMAF) then carry out their investigation on these individuals and just before the arrest, a prevention police officer is informed. On the day of the strike, he accompanied the investigators.

Curbing the criminal descent

On September 7, this role fell to socio-community police officer Mélanie Muniz.

The smiling agent, who has 20 years of experience and training in criminology, spoke with the three occupants of the accommodation while her colleagues searched each room.

The suspects targeted by his Collective (north-east) since May are aged 15 to 30 and most are minors. Often, their parents and loved ones no longer know what to do. A majority of them accepted the help of the police officer, sometimes a few weeks after the arrest.

“We know that there is criminal behavior and our goal is to curb this behavior. To do this, we want to support people, both those who act with violence and those who suffer it, and the collateral victims. The parents are overwhelmed and no longer have authority. They ask us to help them and they believe that their young person could be saved, he who has his whole life ahead of him,” continues the police officer.

The role played by Mélanie Muniz can last several weeks. Subsequently, community groups take over.

During this time, the legal process continues for the targeted individuals. While this was done less rigorously in the past, the investigators, and their colleagues from Project Stop (fight against firearms) and the Eclipse squad, supervise the suspects more closely and consistently ensure that they respect their conditions.

Patrol officers are also involved: documents explaining the conditions that suspects must respect are sent to all stations in the neighborhoods where they live.

“A 360 degree vision”

Through its Collectives, the SPVM wishes to target five to ten individuals per week.

According to officials, around 40 suspects have been arrested or encountered since the start of the summer and some firearms have been seized – official statistics have not yet been compiled. Some of the targeted individuals have decided to change their lives.

“I have been at the SPVM for almost 24 years. I was a street gang investigator. I have been a narcotics investigator for a long time and I have never experienced this, a 360 degree vision, with prevention. Before, we moved from one file to another, but now, we have much closer monitoring,” says Erik Lavallée.

“One less individual who chooses the criminal path, that’s already a win,” adds Inspector Dominique Côté, boss of the SPVM Collectives.

“We are satisfied with the results. The way the Collectives work will remain and we will even try to integrate it into our daily lives, that is to say, into other existing squads or those that will be developed in the future. »

“We offer individuals the opportunity to get out of it. That the police offer them the opportunity to change their lives is correct, but the future must also be present, and it does not necessarily belong to us. The other stakeholders must [organismes ou groupes communautaires] are also ready to welcome these people,” concludes Inspector Côté.

To contact Daniel Renaud, call 514 285-7000, ext. 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the postal address of The Press.