(Montreal) City of Montreal employees fell on the body of a man in a bin while picking up recycling in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district on Monday morning. And even if the residents of the neighborhood are used to living in “unpredictability”, this discovery leaves them speechless.
Updated yesterday at 7:27 p.m.
Teams from the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) have set up a security perimeter at the corner of rue Adam and avenue Letourneux, in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. On the way from The Press, Monday afternoon, he was still there. Agents and inspectors combed the scene in the drizzle.
In the security perimeter, next to a convenience store called Bécotte, a recycling dump truck was stopped. In the back, a blue forensic identification service tent had been erected. This is where employees of the recycling collection discovered an inanimate body inside a bin around 8:50 am Monday morning.
The victim, a man in his 50s, was pronounced dead at the scene. On Monday evening, Caroline Chèvrefils, public relations officer for the SPVM, confirmed that traces of violence had been observed on the victim’s body. The investigation was therefore entrusted to the major crimes section of the SPVM.
This is the 18e homicide committed in Montreal in 2022.
“I have chills”
“So it’s really crazy… I have chills,” said Francis Raymond, who lives nearby. The man from Sorel-Tracy has lived in the neighborhood for a year.
I have no words. It’s business…it’s not done.
Francis Raymond, resident of the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district
On the other side of the security perimeter, at the entrance to the Bécotte convenience store, a few people were gathered, despite the cool air and the rainy weather. Linda Gravel has been in the business for six years. She saw people of all kinds, she says, “but that’s a first.”
The recycling bin where the victim was found appears, according to Mme Gravel, belong to convenience store. But she doesn’t see how commerce could be involved in the matter at all.
This is no longer normal life.
Linda Gravel, employee of the Bécotte convenience store for 6 years
Moreover, residents of the neighborhood have avoided the convenience store, normally busy, she says. “I put myself in the shoes of the truck employees [de recyclage]… you don’t expect that! »
A little further on the avenue Letourneux, Sarah Guigues and her husband are focusing on their bikes, on which are attached child seats. They have two, ages 2 and 4. “We said to ourselves, precisely: how are we going to explain to them, so that neither they nor we live in fear? asks M.me Guigues, who has lived in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve for 10 years. Prostitution, homelessness, nocturnal conflicts, of course, the neighborhood is not easy, she explains. But it is also a very pleasant place to live, she adds, greeting a neighbor who passes by.