The family of Pierre Coriolan, who died under the bullets of Montreal police in 2017, reached an agreement with the City, avoiding the holding of a trial which promised to be painful for the relatives of the victim.
The two sisters of Mr. Coriolan, shot three times on the evening of June 27, 2017 during a police intervention that proved fatal for the 58-year-old Montrealer, claimed more than $160,000 from the City in damages under of a lawsuit initiated in 2018.
According to them, the six police officers who intervened in the home of their brother almost five years ago then used disproportionate force against this man, who was then the subject of a call to the Service. de la police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) because he was in psychological distress and ransacked his apartment. Mr. Coriolan was holding a knife and a screwdriver in his hands at the time of this police intervention, which lasted less than five minutes and proved fatal.
Coroner Luc Malouin’s inquest, the results of which were published last year, has since concluded that this police intervention was carried out using “outdated and in no way updated” methods. His report, which contains 16 recommendations, proposed in particular to impose annual training on police officers on interventions with people in crisis or with mental health problems in order to prioritize a de-escalation approach.
The conclusion of an agreement with the City thus avoids the holding of a trial, which was to be held on Thursday at the Montreal courthouse. “The clients are satisfied” with this agreement, declared to the To have to their lawyer, Virginie Dufresne-Lemire, who did not want to disclose the financial consideration associated with it. The office of the mayoress of Montreal, Valérie Plante, recommended that we contact the City, which had not answered our questions at the time of writing these lines.
One thing is certain, this amicable agreement saves the two sisters of Mr. Coriolan a “difficult” trial during which they would have had to immerse themselves in this police intervention in addition to viewing, once again, the video “excessively difficult to watch” concerning this one, underlined Mr. Dufresne-Lemire.
According to a survey conducted by The duty Last November, 70% of people killed by police in Quebec over the past 20 years had a known mental health problem.