The mother of Jean-René Junior Olivier, shot dead by Repentigny police officers in August 2021, filed a lawsuit against the City of Repentigny and its police department from which she is claiming $430,000. She accuses the police of having used excessive force against a man who was in a vulnerable situation.
1er August 2021, the mother of Jean-René Junior Olivier, Marie Mireille Bence, had dialed 911, worried about her 37-year-old son in the grip of a mental health crisis and fearing that he would be injured. During their intervention that day, the police opened fire on the man who was later pronounced dead in hospital.
The family of Jean-René Junior Olivier accuses the police of having used “abusive and disproportionate force against a vulnerable man” and of having failed to establish a “calm and balanced dialogue” with him. “Mr. Olivier was not in normal condition and the police did not take this reality into account in their work in order to act better. […] They left no chance for Mr. Olivier, ”underlines the originating application filed at the Joliette courthouse on Tuesday.
Mr. Olivier’s mother is claiming from the City of Repentigny, its police department and the police officers concerned an amount of $430,000, including $250,000 in compensatory damages and $100,000 in damages. punitive. Since the victim’s family was never informed of the identity of the police officers involved, the prosecution does not name them.
It should be noted that on February 16, the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) announced that no charges would be filed against the police officers of the Service de police de la Ville de Repentigny (SPVR) following this event. The DPCP then argued that the “two police officers involved had reasonable grounds to believe that the force applied to the man was necessary for their protection” and that “the use of their firearm was the only way to end this threat. According to the summary of the facts, the police had talked about fifteen minutes with Mr. Olivier in order to convince him to put his knife on the ground, which he had done several times. However, he ended up taking his weapon back to rush towards the police who fired shots.
The case having been taken to court, the City of Repentigny declined to comment.
Public inquiry requested
On Tuesday, two organizations fighting against racial profiling, the Red Coalition and Lakay, also demanded from the Minister of Public Security, François Bonnardel, that he order the holding of a public coroner’s inquest in order to shed light on the death of Mr. Olivier.
In a letter sent to Minister Bonnardel, the Red Coalition and Lakay point out that the death of Jean-René Junior Olivier “is the culmination of the escalation of a series of racial incidents between the SPVR and the black community of Repentigny”. According to them, the systemic racism and prejudice that exists at SPVR contributed to the death of the 37-year-old black man.
In their request, the two organizations list the events that have occurred over the past decade that have earned the SPVR multiple accusations of racial profiling.
In 2013, two 12-year-old black children, Shewany Tshilombo and Kélian Ruault, were handcuffed and searched while playing hide and seek at a party at the Repentigny Marina. The Commission des droits de la personne et de la jeunesse (CDPDJ) had ordered that the SPVR and three police officers pay $42,000 in moral and punitive damages. The decision has been appealed, the Human Rights Tribunal will have to decide later this year.
In 2017, Leslie Blot was arrested while sitting in his vehicle on his property blowing up balloons for a children’s party. Handcuffed by the officers, the black man had received four statements of offense totaling more than $750. Judging that Mr. Blot was the victim of racial profiling, the CDPDJ ordered the City of Repentigny to pay the citizen $38,400, a decision that was appealed.
In July 2022, the Human Rights Tribunal ordered the SPVR and two of its police officers to pay $8,000 for racial profiling of François Ducas, a black high school teacher who was arrested in 2017 while driving. a BMW.
The Red Coalition and Lakay also recall the case of Hèzu Kponwbié who, while attending a baseball game in a park in Repentigny, was arrested by police after he had picked up a letter opener that a friend of her son had dropped to the ground. The man, who had filmed his arrest, had been accused of possession of a knife, then acquitted by the Municipal Court.
Action plan
Under pressure, the SPVR presented in September 2021 an action plan called “Let’s evolve at the pace of our community” in order to review its practices and build bridges with the different communities, but Lakay considers this plan insufficient.
Asked by The duty in August 2022 to know if he recognized the existence of racial profiling within the SPVR, the new mayor of Repentigny, Nicolas Dufour, had shown caution. “I can’t say yes, I can’t say no,” he said. “But there are a lot of arrests, and that worries us. »
The Red Coalition and Lakay believe that the bond of trust between the SPVR and the citizens of Repentigny no longer exists and that the DPCP’s decision not to lay charges in Jean-René Junior Olivier’s case is “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
On Tuesday, Minister Bonnardel’s office declined to comment on the request for an investigation made by the two organizations.