Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said she was “shocked” after watching a video that went viral in which we see two officers from the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) violently attacking a person in a situation homelessness. An investigation has been opened.
“I was shocked by the video of a police intervention circulating online. The actions committed by the officers are completely unacceptable and overshadow the excellent work of our police officers, ”wrote Ms. Plante on Twitter, Friday evening.
She reacted to a video first shared on the social network TikTok on Thursday and viewed since by tens of thousands of people. The 15-second clip shows an SPVM officer pushing a homeless man to the ground, causing him to bang his head on a concrete block. The patroller, who was accompanied by a colleague, then forces the homeless person to get up before pushing him into an alley where cars were circulating.
“You can always count on the Montreal police to treat homeless people like humans,” quipped on the social network Cornyturd, which first published this video, which was then taken up by many Internet users.
I was shocked by the video of a police intervention circulating online. The actions committed by the officers are completely unacceptable and cast a shadow over the excellent work of our police officers. the @SPVM investigated to shed light on this situation. #polmtl
— Valerie Plante (@Val_Plante) April 29, 2022
The SPVM is investigating
At the end of the afternoon, after having first carried out a “preliminary analysis” of this video, the SPVM announced “the holding of an investigation into this event”. “She will be assigned to the Integrity and Professional Standards Branch,” the police force said on Twitter.
“The SPVM will shed light on this situation. These actions are unacceptable and cast a shadow over the excellent work being done by our police officers,” also reacted the head of public security on the executive committee, Alain Vaillancourt.
To see in video