The City of Montreal drops its appeal against a judgment condemning it to pay more than $115,000 to a man victim of police brutality, thus ending a legal process that lasted nearly 10 years.
Posted at 2:03 p.m.
Updated at 3:50 p.m.
“We very much welcome this new position of the Plante administration, even if the initial decision to appeal the judgment was received with a good deal of stress and concern,” Didier Berry said on Facebook earlier this week. .
“It’s also ridiculous to think of all those people who were involved in perpetuating this context of injustice for me,” he was indignant in an interview, citing the human and material resources mobilized by the City to defend offending agents all these years.
Mr. Berry sued the City and the police involved in his violent arrest in October 2012. He was then beaten by three officers and then charged with assault and obstructing police work after filming another arrest at the exit from a bar.
Last January, the Superior Court judged “that Mr. Berry’s arrest was not justified any more than the use of force”. Judge Marc St-Pierre condemned the City and three agents to pay $115,440.38 to the plaintiff in material, moral and exemplary damages, plus interest and the additional indemnity.
Mr. Berry had meanwhile been cleared of the charges of assault and obstruction.
The defendants initially appealed the judgment, but they withdrew in February, without giving a reason, according to a document obtained by The Press. The 43-year-old man would like to speak today with the mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, “to try to understand what happened”. Although he is happy with the result, he still says he is “worried” when they think of the other victims stuck in the maze of the system.
“Dossiers like mine, or that of [Mamadi] Camara is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said.
“Considering the legalization of the case, the City of Montreal will not comment,” a spokesperson simply said by email in response to our questions. When we pointed out that the file was clearly no longer in court since the appeal was withdrawn, the publicist Mélanie Dallaire indicated that the City “keeps a right of reservation and will not issue any additional comments on this subject”.
It was also not possible to obtain answers from the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) before the publication of this article.
“I think now is the time to look at our policing system and our complaints system,” argued Professor Ted Rutland, a public safety expert from Concordia University who was also part of the support committee. by Mr. Berry.
Professor Rutland deplores the prohibitive costs of civil legal proceedings for victims of police violence. He is also against the ethics system, which is more accessible, but would be highly biased in favor of agents, according to him.
Mr. Berry considers himself lucky to have this case concluded. “I hope it will encourage other people to denounce actions like this, but above all that it will discourage the police [de récidiver]. »