(Quebec) The Service de police de la Ville de Quebec (SPVQ) announced on Saturday evening that it had opened an investigation into a violent arrest involving young black teenagers. Video of the event circulating on social media shows police officers acting in a way that raises questions.
In a press release, the SPVQ says it has “been made aware of videos” circulating about this intervention which allegedly took place “on the night of November 26 to 27”.
After viewing the video, it seems that the behavior of the officers involved “greatly concerns the management” of the police force.
“As soon as it was made aware, the SPVQ consulted the said videos and took action to take all the necessary measures”, we read in the press release. It was also specified that the professional standards module has been notified.
Also according to the SPVQ press release, we are still trying to confirm the identity of the agents involved in the intervention.
No details have been transmitted about the reason for the police intervention which aroused the indignation of many people on social networks.
This is particularly the case of professional boxer Eric Martel-Bahoéli, who relayed the video on his Facebook page, describing the behavior of one of the police officers as “unsightly and disgusting”.
In the images, we see, among other things, a police officer deliberately sending snow to the face of a teenager immobilized on the ground, face down, by several of his colleagues.
It turns out that this young boy, of minor age, is a protégé of Mr. Martel-Bahoéli, who trains him at the Nordik Boxing Club.
“Firstly, I was extremely surprised to see the young person I knew, and secondly I was stunned, not to say completely scandalized, when I saw the gesture that the police officer took, which was free”, a commented on the Canadian heavyweight champion in an interview with The Canadian Press.
“It doesn’t make sense, he’s a child, he’s a young man! It has no place whatsoever in the case of an adult, but there, in addition, it is a young person who is not of legal age, ”protested the man who is himself a native of Quebec. .
“Clearly he’s immobilized with his arms behind his back. To do that to a young person, also for free, has no place. We are talking about “serving” and “protecting”, ”he continued, specifying that he was awaiting news of the boy’s condition.
In the opinion of Eric Martel-Bahoéli, such a gesture adds fuel to the fire in the context of racial tensions between the police and the black community or the Aboriginals.
“I really didn’t like it. They are not bandits, they are not bad young people. These are not young people with bad intentions in life, as far as I know. I found that unsightly, ”he said.
Above all, he fears that such an incident will destroy all the intervention work that he and his colleagues do with young people in his boxing club. These teenagers come there to seek a sporting, but also social framework, which offers them Mr. Martel-Bahoéli, who also says to work with the Direction of the protection of the youth to help young people.
Despite everything, he refuses to throw stones at the entire Police Department. In his opinion, there are bad police officers who give all their colleagues a bad name, and they are the ones who must be identified and removed from the ranks of the police.
As a native of Quebec and a resident of the Old Capital, Mr. Martel-Bahoéli would also like to see black police officers within the SPVQ, and sooner rather than later.
“There are no black police officers in Quebec! It is not normal, in 2021, when you look at Quebec City and you look at the police force, which is supposed to be representative of the population, and that there are zero black police officers, ”he observes. .
In the evening, Saturday, the mayor of Quebec, Bruno Marchand, also reacted to the video by posting a message on his Twitter account. Saying “troubled by these images”, he promised that “light will be shed on these events”.