The father who kept Sûreté du Québec officers on alert for six days during the longest AMBER alert in Quebec history that occurred in Sainte-Paule in Gaspésie last fall has chosen to plead guilty to all counts charges against him.
On August 31, two workers from the DPJ, accompanied by four police officers, went to the residence of the father of the family in the small municipality of Sainte-Paule in Gaspésie to execute an order allowing them to withdraw custody of the ‘child. No one was there at the time, so the police then went to the parents of the accused, who cannot be named to protect the child’s identity, to locate him.
The father of the accused, who was very uncooperative, then indicated that the 36-year-old man, the three-year-old child and his mother were in the forest and that he was armed. Negotiations had taken place for the wanted man to return to the residence, but the latter had rather escaped by passing in front of the police on an ATV, his boy with him.
Alert AMBER
The police immediately issued an AMBER alert. Information that the accused quickly obtained when the wanted notice also sounded on his cell phone. Letting go of his phone, the fugitive and the child then spent three nights, two of them in the pouring rain in hunting caches, then in a cabin where he stole another weapon and food.
On September 4, finding the conditions of flight difficult, the fugitive had reintroduced himself inside his residence in Sainte-Paule without the knowledge of the police. It was while wanting to install a camera system in the house in question that the police found themselves face to face with the man who got up from his bed to shoot in their direction.
Several shots
The man who was armed with two .12 and .22 caliber rifles in addition to a .38 caliber revolver fired three times without hitting any of the four police officers then inside. In the evening, an attempt by the tactical intervention group (GTI) to pick up the child also ended in gunfire from the accused, forcing the police to withdraw.
Negotiations then took place until the next day during which the father, still in the presence of his child on the second floor of the residence, said that everything would end “in a bloodbath”. Around noon the next day, nearly six days after the triggering of the AMBER alert which mobilized 400 police officers, the accused finally agreed to let the child join his mother, then to be arrested.
Guilty plea
Wednesday morning at the Matane courthouse, the man pleaded guilty to a multitude of charges in connection with this file, in particular of having discharged a firearm towards the police and of having hidden a child with the aim of deprive the person who had custody of it of its possession. However, some charges have fallen, including that of attempted murder of police officers.
Following the event, the mother of the child and ex-spouse of the accused had however filed a complaint for several assaults over a period of five years. The accused also pleaded guilty to these charges.
Lawyers for both parties offered the judge a 10-year prison sentence for all the cases. The judge took it all under advisement and will announce his decision Thursday morning.