Two police officers from the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) lied to the investigators responsible for shedding light on the death of an inmate, which occurred in a cell in 2017.
This is the decision rendered very recently by the Police Ethics Committee, five years after the death of 23-year-old David Tshiteya Kalubi.
Detective Sergeant Dominic Gagné and Constable Mathieu Paré noted in their records that Mr. Kalubi claimed to have no health problems when he arrived at the police station. They served the same version to the Bureau of Independent Investigations (BEI), responsible for investigating the death.
Both men had forgotten that the reception procedure was being filmed: the video extract confirms that Mr. Kalubi had mentioned three times that he has sickle cell anemia, a severe blood disease which disproportionately affects black people. He had also indicated that he was taking medication – which he did not have with him.
Detective Sergeant Gagné and Constable Paré “presented a statement that they knew to be false and inaccurate to the BEI which attempted to clarify the circumstances of Mr. Kalubi’s death following their intervention on his behalf”, ruled the Police Ethics Committee. “The fault is serious and characterized. »
Mr. Kalubi died the day after his arrest in a cell at the Montreal Municipal Court. The autopsy attributed his death to “cardiac arrhythmia secondary to cardiomegaly of multifactorial etiology”. The decision does not specify whether there is a potential link between Mr. Kalubi’s illness and the cause of his death.
It was during a meeting with BEI investigators that the police were confused. The CCTV footage was shown to them for the first time. The two police officers quickly left the meeting with the investigators.
They should be summoned again before the Police Ethics Committee to determine the sanction that will be imposed on them.