Six psychosocial workers will be deployed in the field starting in October to respond to 911 calls concerning people with mental health problems in Repentigny. A measure which, however, comes “too late” for the mother of a man in distress shot dead by police in the area last year.
The Service de police de la Ville de Repentigny (SPVR) will benefit from the assistance of the CISSS de Lanaudière, which will provide it with two specialists in mental health. The hiring process for four other specialists will also begin in August in the hope that they will be ready to be deployed in the field in Repentigny and Charlemagne the following month.
Therefore, when a call is made to 911 concerning a person with a mental health problem, the dispatchers will have to give priority to this new specialized unit, whose members will go to the scene in teams of two aboard “vehicles civilians” and without uniform, explains to the To have to the director of the SPVR, Helen Dion. This unit will be deployed as part of a three-year pilot project valued at $1.4 million.
“It’s an extremely innovative project,” says Mr.me Dion, who recalls that “the uniform [des policiers], instead of calming the situation, can cause a disorganization of the person”. The director specifies that the police will however be called upon to move in the event of situations “of a violent nature” which would pose a threat to the safety of these civilian responders, who will also have “portable radio devices” in order to be able to contact the police quickly if the situation escalates.
Across the province, more than 80,000 interventions were carried out in 2019 by police services with people with mental health problems, according to the final report of the Advisory Committee on Policing, released last year. . This situation has notably prompted the Sûreté du Québec to review the training of its police officers, while the Montreal police force has set up various specialized teams.
The SPVR notes for its part that nearly 40% of the interventions carried out by its agents last year concerned people “whose mental state was disturbed”.
“Too little, too late”
In an interview, Helen Dion indicates that this announcement “has no connection” with the death on 1er August 2021 of Jean René Junior Olivier, who died at the age of 38 under police bullets in Repentigny while in distress. But for the victim’s mother, Marie-Mireille Bence, the announcement of this new unit of psychosocial workers is “too little, too late”.
“Me, what I hope is that there isn’t a family going through what I’m going through right now because the people who murdered my son, they’re at home, they’re working, they have their peace, they are in their comfort, but I don’t. They murdered my son and I have no support”, deplores the lady, who is demanding justice for her son, who according to her has been the victim of “racism”.
Pierre-Richard Thomas, coordinator at Lakay Media and president of the Association des personnes racisés de Repentigny, wonders if members of “different ethnic communities” will be integrated into the future mental health unit of the SPVR in order to avoid to “reproduce the prejudices” of which many Repentigny residents have been victims in recent years.
Mme Dion, for his part, indicated to the To have to that we “cannot deny the existence of racial profiling today”. The SPVR also announced last year a five-year action plan to tackle this issue, which the police force has since been “very active” in implementing.