The second trial of police officer Éric Deslauriers began Monday at the Saint-Jérôme courthouse, five and a half years after the first. The Sûreté du Québec policeman is accused of having caused the death of a 17-year-old teenager by shooting him during a delicate intervention in the parking lot of a school in 2014.
Posted at 12:11 p.m.
The 50-year-old man was first convicted of manslaughter by Judge Joëlle Roy, then sentenced to four years in prison in May 2018. However, the Quebec Court of Appeal had ordered the holding of a new trial in March 2020, accusing Judge Roy of having painted an “unreasonable” portrait of the events and of having excluded important elements of evidence.
Éric Deslauriers intervened at noon in the parking lot of a high school in Sainte-Adèle on January 22, 2014. The police officer noticed that the vehicle driven by the victim was stolen, then positioned himself so that his car blocks the exit from the parking lot.
A witness told at the first trial that the victim had revved his engine several times while looking at Éric Deslauriers. The latter would then have asked the driver to raise his hands three times. Believing that the teenager had complied, the police officer then approached him. But when he was a few meters from the vehicle, the teenager would have pressed the accelerator pedal.
It was at this time that the police officer allegedly fired twice in the direction of the young man. According to his testimony at the first trial, he had feared for his life when he saw the car racing towards him. The vehicle finally grazed the police officer before ending its course a little further in a snow bank.
The precise circumstances of this intervention will again be dissected during a new trial which will take place over several weeks before Judge Éric Côté of the Court of Quebec. Crown prosecutor M.e Marie-Claude Bourassa, who teams up with Me Isabelle Bouchard, announced that pathology and ballistics experts will testify this week.
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, THE PRESS
The Crown prosecutor, Mr.e Marie-Claude Bourassa
The trial began on Monday with the testimony of a forensic identification technician.
The accused is defended by Mr.e Nadine Touma and M.e Stephanie Lozeau.