Two of our investigative journalists, Stéphanie Vallet and Améli Pineda, went through 331 coroner’s reports to isolate 81 cases of death of Quebecers shot by police over the past 20 years. This detailed analysis demonstrates the imperative need to reform the police organization and to permanently modify the care of people in distress.
Eighty-one deaths in 20 years, while the police had to carry out hundreds of thousands of interventions, it is a statistical anomaly, the main stakeholders will say. The overwhelming majority of interventions go off without a hitch, they will add. Why this fixation on an epiphenomenon?
Well, exactly. Our journalists have shown that 70% of people shot by police in Quebec were struggling with a known mental health problem. Their analysis made it possible to draw a composite portrait of the typical victim. He is a 38-year-old man, armed with a knife in half of the cases, in crisis, in the grip of mental distress and possibly in a state of intoxication. In one in two cases, the intervention ends with gunshots in less than ten minutes.
The case of Jean René Junior Olivier, killed by police officers from Repentigny last August, fits this description. The testimony of his mother, Marie-Mireille Bence, is particularly disturbing. It was she who dialed 911, while her 37-year-old son was in the midst of a crisis. Armed with a steak knife, he said he wanted to defend himself against imaginary people wanting him harm. “I thought I would see an ambulance arrive, and not six or eight police officers with guns,” said Mme Bence.
Logic would have liked it to be so, but no. When the police arrived, Olivier fled with his knife at 7:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning in the deserted streets of Repentigny. He was shot dead, a victim of his illness and outdated police practices.
From their training, aspiring police officers are conditioned to be wary of suspects armed with a knife, which is very understanding. They are taught that within 21 feet of distance, the suspect would have time to rush on them and stab them without them having time to draw. They shoot fear in the stomach.
Shouldn’t these practices be reviewed? Especially when the suspect is first of all a threat to himself, a person in crisis who does not obey the orders of the police. Especially when intermediate weapons are not even used in six out of ten deaths. It is not easy for a police officer to make these distinctions in the heat of the moment. With hindsight, it’s always easier to put an intervention on trial and say how it could have been perfect.
But now, if coroner’s inquests take place in each case of the death of a man, with recommendations to the key, it is to avoid the repetition of these dire scenarios which leave families in mourning and which bring discredit. on the police organization. These surveys regularly point to flaws in the training and understanding of police officers in the management of people with mental health problems.
The keystone of a reform is based on training, at school and in an ongoing process. Our journalists point out that the police must undergo training in re-qualification for shooting every year. Conversely, no knowledge update is required for mental health issues, although they represent a significant proportion of 911 calls.
Even the most forward-thinking police forces on mental health issues have a few spots on their track record. Thus, barely 17.5% of the police officers of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) have taken the 40-hour training course which teaches patrollers how to save time, find a peaceful solution and avoid the risk of injury related to the use of force for people in crisis. However, the voluntary program has been in place since 2013. In Repentigny, where Jean René Junior Olivier was killed, barely 8 of the 118 police officers received similar training.
Soon, coroner Luc Malouin will make public his report on the death of Pierre Coriolan, a man who was experiencing mental health problems and who was shot dead by SPVM patrol officers in 2017. The coroner has already spoken in favor of compulsory annual training: on mental health, on intervention with a person in crisis, on the de-escalation of violence and on communication. Lucid, Coroner Malouin was already saying last summer: “It doesn’t help to put 40 recommendations, they won’t apply them.” This is where the leadership of public office holders is essential. If elected officials do not get involved, the recommendations of the various coroner’s inquests will continue to accumulate dust or be weakly implemented.
Mental health problems are increasing in number and complexity in our societies. It is high time for the police to move from “muscular strength to social intervention”, as the headline The duty at the conclusion of his investigation.