(Montreal) The intervention which cost the life of Sûreté du Québec sergeant Maureen Breau reveals a “deficient” risk assessment, “inadequate” planning and “insufficient” police training in the use of force. », Affirms the CNESST in a report communicated to coroner Géhane Kamel.
On March 27, Maureen Breau and three other police officers showed up at Isaac Brouillard Lessard’s apartment to arrest him for uttering threats and breach of probation.
The 35-year-old stabbed M to deathme Breau and seriously injured his partner, at his home in Louiseville, in Mauricie, and he was shot dead by the police a few moments later.
Coroner Géhane Kamel’s investigation, which began on February 12 at the Trois-Rivières courthouse, aims to shed light on the circumstances surrounding these two deaths, and “to identify the contributing factors and to formulate , where appropriate, recommendations to better protect human life.”
PHOTO SÛRETÉ DU QUÉBEC/THE CANADIAN PRESS
Maureen Breau
The Commission for Standards, Equity, Health and Safety at Work (CNESST) made public the conclusions of its own investigation on Thursday, saying it had identified five causes to explain the event.
Thus, the organization reports that the police officer, heading towards her colleague who was attacked by a citizen armed with a knife, “found herself targeted and was stabbed in the neck”.
The report highlights a “deficient” risk assessment during a planned arrest. This assessment is “left to the discretion of the police” and exposes them to intervening against an individual whose level of dangerousness would have required an intervention strategy ensuring them greater safety, maintains the CNESST.
Also, the planning of the arrest is “inadequate”, in that “several elements of the defense principles and tactical principles during a police intervention are not respected”.
The CNESST then explains that the training of police officers in the use of force is “insufficient”, and that the supervision by the employer of its police officers during the risk assessment and planning of the intervention is “ inadequate”.
In a press release on Thursday, the CNESST indicated that it had asked the SQ to make corrections, and that the employer is currently working to put them in place.
The family of Brouillard Lessard testifies
The father of the man who killed Sergeant Maureen Breau last year said he would have hoped his son would be arrested and hospitalized before he could hurt anyone.
Serge Brouillard told the coroner’s inquest on Thursday that he expected a complaint to police from another family member would get his son the help he needed.
Mr. Brouillard described his son as an intelligent nature lover who played high-level soccer in his youth and was always ready to help others around him.
But Mr. Brouillard says his son also suffered from a mental illness and that the 35-year-old man had fallen through the cracks of the health care system.
Coroner Géhane Kamel responded to the father that, since the investigation began, at least six families had written to him to tell him that they sympathized with him and that they were grappling with a similar situation.