The new police chief, Fady Dagher, and the number 2 of the municipal administration, Dominique Ollivier, defended the recent actions of the City of Montreal, Thursday, at the trial of a class action of 170 million related to racial profiling.
Both senior officials acknowledged that profiling exists and stressed their determination to get things done. They testified at the request of the Ligue des Noirs du Québec, which is leading the prosecution, but did not contest their summons.
The organization is trying to prove that Montreal is not taking the necessary steps to combat racial discrimination by its police officers.
“We are on the move. There is a realization and we tell ourselves that now is the chance to fix it [le problème] “said M.me Olivier.
Mme Ollivier had to answer many questions from the lawyer for the League of Blacks regarding a 2020 report from the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM), very critical of the Police Department of the City of Montreal (SPVM).
“What we wanted to bring is the sense of urgency,” explained M.me Ollivier, stating that “several of the recommendations that are in this report have been implemented”.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
The new director of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM), Fady Dagher, testified Thursday before the Superior Court.
Mr. Dagher, meanwhile, described the fight against racial profiling as a “big job with a lot of resistance”. “It’s a very insidious, very subtle, very sneaky problem and you don’t realize you’re doing it,” he said. Mr. Dagher had previously publicly admitted to having unwittingly racially profiled himself during his long police career.
He added that it was necessary to guide the police in order to convince them to change their sometimes discriminatory practices, in particular by giving them better tools to carry out criminal rather than racial profiling.
Credibility under attack
Moreover, in the morning, the City of Montreal attacked the credibility of the young black man who is the person named in the class action.
The City’s lawyers tried to bring to light contradictions in the testimony of Alexandre Lamontagne, arrested after an altercation with the police at the exit of the bars, rue Saint-Jacques, in August 2017. He received three statements of offense related to incivility, in addition to being the subject of criminal charges that were ultimately dropped.
Me Jean-Nicolas Loiselle, who represents the City of Montreal, conducted a tight cross-examination. Why does Mr. Lamontagne claim that he never resisted his arrest, when he has already admitted to having forced the police officers who were handcuffing him in the opposite direction? Why does he claim to have filed an ethics complaint, when it was his lawyer who did? Why does he say he remained courteous, when he previously admitted to having called the police “idiots”?
“It’s a matter of credibility,” said Mr.e Loiselle to Judge Dominique Poulin during one of Ms.e Mike Diomande, Mr. Lamontagne’s lawyer.
The latter was chosen to represent the thousands of racialized individuals who were arrested, possibly without cause, by the SPVM between 2017 and 2019. The lawsuit is asking for compensation of $5,000 for each of them.