The Berri-UQAM station was evacuated Wednesday midday due to a fight that degenerated between two men on the green line platform. Cayenne pepper was notably sprayed by one of them, who was arrested by the Montreal police.
This was indicated by the Montreal Police Service (SPVM), which was called to the scene around 12:25 p.m.
According to an SPVM spokesperson, agent Véronique Dubuc, a fight first broke out on the green line platform between two men. During the altercation, pepper spray was used, which forced the evacuation of the station, as required by protocol, to allow teams to carry out emergency ventilation.
All of this also forced an interruption of service on the yellow, green and orange lines of the Montreal metro. However, everything was resolved very quickly, in a little over ten minutes.
According to what the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) indicated, the outage affected service between Longueuil and Berri-UQAM, on the yellow line, as well as between Atwater and Viau stations, on the green line, and the Lionel-Groulx and Beaubien stations, on the orange line.
A 25-year-old man, the one who allegedly sprayed the other with irritant gas, was arrested shortly after the incident by the police. He should be charged with public mischief in the coming days, said Mr.me Dubuc. It is unknown how many people have been harmed by cayenne pepper at this point.
Teams from the Montreal Fire Safety Service (SIM) and Urgences-Santé were also deployed to the scene on Wednesday noon as a preventive measure.
This affair is reminiscent of the fact that a few weeks ago, at the end of March, a long outage lasting more than two hours interrupted service between the Berri-UQAM and Montmorency stations, disrupting the return home of thousands of Montrealers, during rush hour.