A young man who claims to be a victim of police brutality and racial profiling and his family are claiming $180,000 from the City of Quebec and four police officers for the many repercussions this event has had on their lives.
The duty had access to the originating application filed Friday in the Superior Court of Quebec, which was first the subject of an article in The Press Friday morning.
The charges date back to the night of November 26 to 27. Around 3 a.m., Pacifique Niyokwizera and some of his friends were leaving the Le Dagobert nightclub in Old Quebec. The plaintiff, then 18 years old, noticed that a friend of his was being held by two security guards near the bar. Mr. Niyokwizera then got confused with the security guards, which prompted officers from the Quebec City Police Service (SPVQ) to intervene to ask the young man and his friends to leave the premises. They then go to the parking lot of a nearby bar.
“The police are threatening the group to take them into custody. Worried that the situation will escalate, Mr. Niyokwizera advances towards the police to try to explain what happened with the security guard, what he thinks is the cause of the police intervention », Indicates the continuation of about twenty pages.
This is where the situation escalates. The young man would then have been sprayed with tear gas by one of the officers involved in this case, which prompted him to take out his phone to film his interaction with the police. One of the agents then invites Mr. Niyokwizera to approach, claiming to want to discuss with him. The policeman then begins to beat him “with truncheons”, claims the prosecution. “Other police also intervene abruptly and seize the applicant,” the document adds.
The plaintiff was then thrown to the ground by SPVQ officers, who struck him in the ribs and face, leaving him with a “bloated and bloody eye”, according to the prosecution. A disproportionate force that the family of Mr. Niyokwizera associates with “racial profiling”, indicates the request, written among others by the lawyer Fernando Belton.
After being transported in a car several streets from Dagobert, the young man, who would have been the subject of racist remarks along the way, is left at the Gare du Palais when he does not have his phone with him. nor his wallet, which he misplaced during this police altercation, which prevents him from returning home “by his own means”. The young man then runs to Place D’Youville, where a motorist agrees to drop him off in front of Le Dagobert, where he finds his wallet, but not his phone.
Pacific Niyokwizera, who was then a beneficiary attendant, then took refuge in a restaurant located near the nightclub before seeing a doctor in the emergency room on November 28. He is diagnosed with a concussion.
$180,000 in damages
The prosecution alleges that the police officers committed several ethical faults, in addition to being racist. “The police officers gave Mr. Niyokwizera no warning before resorting to force, which was disproportionate,” underlines the document, among other things, which recalls that “the use of handcuffs was exaggerated in the context of an operation seeking to issue Mr. Niyokwizera with a statement of criminal offense for public disorder”. The family is also contesting this finding before the Municipal Court.
“The reasons for public disorder alleged by the police to justify the arrest are only pretexts for the real reason which is linked to race”, notes the prosecution.
In order to compensate for the damage suffered by the young man, who fears for his life and his safety on the evening of this event, during which he experienced a “humiliation” which will remain “marked for life”, the request in Superior Court claims 90 $000 in “non-pecuniary” damages. A sum of 10,000 dollars is also claimed for each of the two sisters of the young man as well as for his mother, who remained traumatized by this police intervention.
The prosecution is also claiming the sum of $15,000 for each of the four police officers involved. All of the amounts claimed thus come to a total of $180,000.
At the end of January, four of the five police officers who had been suspended on the sidelines of this filmed police intervention resumed their regular duties with the Quebec police. The fifth now holds administrative positions within the SPVQ.