The sisters of Ronny Kay, who died under the bullets of a police officer on September 17 in L’Île-des-Soeurs, are calling for a public inquiry to understand how a distress call could have led to the death of their brother. The duty learned that before intervening with the 38-year-old man, the police had been informed that the latter had made disturbing remarks and was in crisis.
“Ronny was not a criminal. It’s not a case of a street gang or a gunshot, it was not a public danger, it was a man in distress, ”underlines Michelle Kay, one of Ronny Kay’s sisters. “We need a public inquiry. We need to know exactly what happened that day to get my brother killed, ”adds Debola Kay, the eldest of the family.
On September 17, the Kay sisters saw media alerts on their cell phones reporting a major police deployment in L’Île-des-Soeurs about a suicidal, armed man walking down the street. “Our brother was not a suicidal person, he was not dangerous,” says Debola.
This Saturday was supposed to be a day like any other.
Around 12:30 p.m., two patrol officers arrived at Ronny Kay’s apartment on Place du Soleil, in the middle of a residential area. Two calls had been made a little earlier to 911. Ronny’s ex-girlfriend would have dropped by unexpectedly to recover furniture while the Desjardins financial adviser was teleworking. It was she who first phoned the police, reporting that he was refusing to cooperate, a call which allegedly panicked the man to the point of contacting his employer around 11:30 a.m. “Either I kill myself or the police are killing me,” he said to his manager before the police arrived. The latter in turn contacted 911, worried about the mental state of her employee.
“My brother was afraid of the police,” says Debola Kay. Since a muscular intervention in 2011 at the family home, the man has developed an excessive fear of the authorities, especially since this incident led him to stay at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute. “Did they type my brother’s name into their system?” Did they see that they were the ones who brought him to Douglas in 2011? Did they ignore these elements? she asks herself.
On the day of the fatal operation, the eldest of the family managed to get to her brother’s house after he called her, too, in a panic at 12:25 p.m. She spoke to him again on the telephone at 12:32 p.m., without suspecting that it would be the last time. “He said to me: ‘The police are coming, I’m trying to shaker. Excuse me, I’m going to kill myself or the police kill me.” I felt his distress. »
When she arrives at his home, Debola Kay confirms that no security perimeter had been set up by the police. “I arrived at the apartment, his ex-girlfriend said to me: ‘He left outside with a knife'”, recounts the woman, still shaken by this memory.
“I ran outside, I saw two patrollers, I told them: ‘I’m his sister. My brother, he is not a dangerous person, he is a person in distress. Please pass this on to your colleagues, don’t shoot no please!” The police would then have told him that his brother had “not yet been located, that there was a protocol to follow and that all they could do was call him when there was trouble. new “.
In a video captured by a resident and in which we see several police officers talking to each other, three shots ring out at 12:58 p.m. The police disperse immediately, visibly looking for their source. Ronny Kay is hit by two projectiles; his family will not be informed of his death until a few hours later, at the hospital.
Divergent versions
No bladed weapon would be involved, according to the Bureau of Independent Investigations (BEI), mandated to shed light on this intervention. “So far, the investigation shows that he had an imitation firearm on him,” said the BEI. The SPVM did not wish to comment in order to let the independent investigation follow its course.
According to police sources, Ronny Kay was still inside his home when he allegedly displayed a weapon in front of the patrol duo; the latter would then have decided to carry out what is called in police parlance a strategic withdrawal. The man then left the building, and the police lost sight of him.
This version diverges from the one given by Ronny’s ex-girlfriend to the Kay sisters. “She was talking about a small knife to cut the letters. Ronny would have pointed it at the patrol car,” says Michelle Kay. Her story matches, according to our information, with the one she gave to the investigators on the day of the event.
How could he leave his home? Why did they lose track of him? Where does the fake weapon he allegedly pointed at a police officer come from? The questions that plague those close to Ronny Kay are numerous. “The further we go, the more we do the chronology of events, the more we realize that it does not work. There is a nasty problem with the police when we know that, more and more, they have to intervene with people with mental health problems. Will they end up killing them with each difficult intervention? says Debola Kay.
A panic fear of the police
Described as a rather discreet man who had difficulty expressing his emotions, Ronny Kay was very concerned with “doing good”, according to his sisters. He devoted a lot of his time to volunteer work and felt very close to traditional Chinese culture.
Debola Kay insists that on the day of her death, Ronny Kay was leading a day like any other. The day before, he had asked her if she was available to pick up two orders from big box stores. In an exchange of text messages, he writes to her that he is teleworking the next day from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., but free thereafter.
“He hadn’t finished his meal. We found his bagel cut in half and a pot of canned soup. He was working, it was not a planned gesture, ”insists Michelle Kay.
Two of Mr. Kay’s sisters told the To have to that he had a panic fear of the police to the point of losing control of them, according to them. ” [Lors de la dispute familiale de 2011], even before the police arrived, my brother, in his head, thought he was going to have a stain on his file, that he could never work for community or humanitarian organizations again. He was panicked. For him, it was important to do good, so he swallowed pills because he preferred to die,” recalls Debola Kay.
This incident particularly marked Ronny Kay, who subsequently experienced several depressive phases, according to those close to him. The man had also filed a police ethics complaint, but the complaint was dismissed.
“My brother corresponds almost in every way to the composite portrait of people killed during police interventions [que Le Devoir a dressé l’an dernier]. He was 38 years old, he was a minority and he was in crisis, ”laments Debola.
“Ronny must not have died in vain, police training must change,” say his sisters.