A class action against the POLICE for racial profiling is preparing

PHOTO AGENCE QMI, JOEL LEMAY

QMI agency

Friday, march 30, 2018 13:35

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Friday, march 30, 2018 13:35

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MONTREAL – A class action accusing the POLICE of racial profiling, led by the lawyer Jacki-Éric Salvant in collaboration with the League of black, is in preparation.

On Wednesday, the Court of human rights has published a decision condemning the SPVM and two of its officers to pay $ 14,000 to a motorist black for racial profiling.

“There will be others, trust me”, said ms. Jacki-Éric Salvant in an interview Friday on the waves of LCN, the subject of this kind of case.

“The League of the Black, we hope that the judges are at least aware of the brutal reality of racial profiling”, for its part, explained Gabriel Bazin, vice-president of the League of Black.

“Is that the BMW belongs to you ?”

On the 21st of march last, I Salvant has lived a problematic situation with the authorities.

While he was waiting for someone in his car — a BMW — in the parking lot of a shopping center of boulevard Pie IX, four police officers of the SPVM were arrested.

After having asked if the “BM” belonged to him, an officer asked him for his identity papers.

After getting out of his vehicle and to have been surrounded by four police officers, Ms. Salvant has released his card for a lawyer to prove to them that he practiced this profession. Once done, the representatives of the SPVM are gone.

“I’m actually wondering if today, in Quebec, it is necessary to be a lawyer to not be treated this way. If I had been Mr. or Ms. All-the-world, it could escalate,” said the lawyer.

According to Ian Lafrenière, spokesman for the SPVM, there was an intervention drug conducted by the group Eclipse on the evening of the event.

It also specifies that police have the right to intervene with drivers to enforce the highway safety code.

Stopped to have visited an apartment

Rodriguez Berthelus, real estate agent and a participant in the collective action, also testified on the waves of LCN of similar behaviour on the part of police officers of the SPVM.

On the 17th of march last, Mr. Berthelus was going to visit a property. At its output of an apartment, he was arrested by the occupying of a dwelling visited, who asked him what he was doing on the spot.

“I replied that I had the key for a visit to the accommodation”, he says.

The woman then asked Mr Berthelus to wait in order to perform audits.

The estate agent has waited a while before leaving, because he had other visits to make, and this, despite the objections of the occupying of the dwelling, that he would have “crammed” to get to his vehicle.

On his return to the house, officers of the police de Longueuil, were intercepted at the request of the SPVM, who was later placed under arrest for assault and enter by the crime.

“The worst part of it is that when I’m home is that my children were crying […] when I took my son in my arms, he said to me : “dad, you’re not dead?””, says Mr Berthelus.