The Case of Mohamed Anas Bennis, Eleven Months Later...
No charges are to be laid against the killer cops Bernier and Roy,
and none of the questions have been answered...
Montreal, November 13th 2006. On November 4th 2006, the government of
Quebec released a brief statement to the effect that "no criminal
charges will be laid as following the death of Mr Mohamed Annas
Bennis"? as "a thorough examination of the evidence did not lead us to
conclude that a criminal act had occurred." (1) More than eleven months after the incident where an
officer from the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM
– Montreal Police Department) shot Mohamed Anas Bennis twice, once in
the heart killing him, a brief review of the facts is in order.
What Happened and What the Police Say Happened
On December 1st 2005, at around 7:20am, on the corner of Kent Street
and Côte-Des-Neiges, the twenty-five year old Mohamed Anas Bennis
was killed, shot twice by an SPVM officer from Neighbourhood Station
25. Mohamed was killed in the midst of a joint police operation
involving the SPVM, the Quebec Provincial Police, the RCMP and even
perhaps the FBI. "Operation Glory," which ended up not to be so
glorious after all, targeted a network of alleged Algerian scam artists
who were suspected of ties to "international terrorism." But although
he was a young bearded Moroccan on his way home from Mosque wearing a
skullcap and djellabah, Mohamed had absolutely nothing to do with any
of this.(2)
The next day, the police version of events was published in the Journal
de Montreal: Mohamed, described as "unbalanced,"? was said to have
jumped on a police officer with a kitchen knife, for no reason,
stabbing him in the neck and in the leg. The officer then fired the two
fatal shots, apparently in "justified self-defense." (3) This version of events was challenged by Mohamed’s
friends and family, who described him as an easy going young man who
had never had any problems with the police, or any psychological
problems. Furthermore, as his sister pointed out, "The idea of Mohamed
Anas walking around with a kitchen knife as he left Mosque on the
morning of December 1st, there is no way we’re going to swallow a story
like that. We’d do better to believe in Santa Claus!"(4)
The Service de Police de la Ville de Québec (SPVQ – Quebec City
Police Department) was charged with investigating the case, as
according to the "policy of the Public Security Minister of Quebec,
that when a death or serious bodily injury which might result in death
occurs during a police operation or period of detention" no police
force can investigate itself or events in which its own officers caused
someone to die.
The community mobilizes
Mohamed Anas Bennis’ father, Mohamed Bennis, as well as the Atlas Media
Group, set up the Association for Truth Regarding the Death of Anas,
which quickly received support from many people and organizations
concerned with civil rights. On December 2nd it was reported that the
police officer in question was "treated for superficial injuries which
did not require hospitalization." On December 5th, the SPVQ officer in
charge of the investigation confirmed that there was a video tape of
the incident. On December 6th, the father hired the lawyer Luc Trempe
to expose what he referred to as a "bavure policiere." [A term which
means "police error," but which is used to refer to police killings. -
translator] The father traveled to Quebec City and met with
Lieutenant-Detective Jocelyn Bélanger, who told him that the
investigation was now in the coroner’s hands. On December 8th a source
confirmed that on the police radio one could hear police shouting "Show
us your hands!" to Mohamed. The police also claim that the video
recording is of poor quality and "cannot be used."(5)
On December 11th 2005, the Atlas Media Group devoted a radio show to
the Anas affair, inviting a member of COBP to speak about police
brutality. On December 15th, there was a special report on the case in
the Atlas Media newspaper, with a circulation of 10,000 copies; other
articles would be published in January and November 2006. Mohamed’s
father denounced the bavure policiere, suggesting that his son was the
victim of racial profiling, killed because of how he looked and the
stereotype of Muslim terrorists. The fact that the killer cop was only
25 years old and has only been on the job for four years added to
suspicions that Mohamed Anas Bennis was in fact a victim of racial
profiling. (6) The family also
denounced the investigators’ lack of transparency and the lack of
communication from the police authorities. In an interview with La
Presse, Mohamed’s brother Mohamed-Labri Bennis said "They refuse to
tell us why" Mohamed Anas was killed. Even if the police were telling
the truth, he asked "Is this the only way that two police officers with
firearms can immobilize a man with a knife?" (7)
On January 7th 2006, a day when the temperature dropped to minus
seventeen, roughly 2000 people participated in a demonstration called
by the Association for Truth Regarding the Death of Anas. The vast
majority of the demonstrators were from the Moroccan, Arab and Muslim
communities. In fact, the Imams had put out a call to participate
through the Mosques. Chanting "Justice and Dignity, We Want the Truth!"
the demonstrators denounced the slow pace of the police investigation
and demanded a public inquiry to shed light on the case. Speeches by
family and organizers asked people to be patient and have faith in the
police and the system. They even thanked the SPVM for having escorted
the demonstration, and when someone shouted out "Killer Cops!" he was
quickly told to be quiet by the protest marshals... Speeches called for
"Montreal police to be better educated about Islam and the Muslim
community, as many police officers are ignorant about how Muslims dress
and their religious practices," because without this "members of the
police force will be influenced by the islamophobic and stereotyped
media propaganda regarding Muslims." (8)
Representatives of the Muslim Council of Montreal and the Black
Coalition of Quebec also took part in the march, as did the former
Liberal Minister of Immigration, Denis Coderre. Many people were
justifiably shocked that this man, nicknamed "Mr Security Certificate,"
had been invited to a demonstration for Mohamed Anas Bennis. Indeed, a
campaign had just been launched to "Vote Against Coderre" and "deport
him from parliament." Amongst other things, Coderre had been
responsible for signing three security certificates, one of which was
for Adil Charkaoui (who was also present at the march). Coderre also
oversaw almost 18,000 deportations, lifted the moratorium on
deportations to Algeria, and had police brutalize undocumented
Algerians in his Ottawa office, amongst other things. (9) Right in the middle of an election campaign and the
sponsorship scandal, Coderre’s appearance at the demonstration was
nothing but a disgusting attempt to get some political capital out of a
man’s death by pretending to denounce police brutality and posing as a
"friend"? of the community... "Mr Security Certificate" was also
invited to speak on the Atlas Media radio show the Sunday following the
demonstration.
The cover up and clearing the police
Three days after the march, Katherine Wilton of the Gazette reported
that the police "promised yesterday all the facts in the bizarre case
will be made public once their work is complete." She quoted Constable
Hugues Lavoie of the SPVQ as saying "We are professionals and we have
no interest in hiding anything." (10)
According to officer Jean-Sébastien Roy of the SPVQ (we do not
know if he is related to the officer Roy of the SPVM who was implicated
in the incident on December 1st 2005), "our report was finished in
March and we sent it to the Crown Prosecutor in Rimouski." In late
September 2006, Mohamed Anas Bennis’ sister Najilaa told the Journal de
Montreal that "They are trying to hide something from us. We want to
know the truth, whether my brother was a victim or was the one to
blame. Yet we have no news. It is not normal." Prosecutor James
Rondeau, who had received the file on April 13th, claimed to
"understand the concerns" of the Bennis family, but blamed "a heavy
workload before the summer" and "sick leave following surgery on his
arm" for the time it was taking. Trying to be reassuring, he explained
that "I am not the kind who only does half the job. I spent some time
on this file. I even went to Montreal to see where it happened. (...)"
He said that it would be known before December 1st whether or not
charges would be laid in the case. (11)
And so it was more than eleven months after the death of Mohamed Anas
Bennis, on November 4th 2006, that the "substitute associate chief of
the Attorney General of Rimouski" James Rondeau released his decision
in the form of a press release. No criminal charges would be laid
against the police officer who killed Mohamed Anas Bennis. Apparently
"a thorough examination of the evidence did not lead us to conclude
that a criminal act had occurred." (12)
And yet the report of Coroner Rafaël Ayllon, signed on January
31st 2006 in Montreal, left no room for doubt: he concluded that this
was a "violent death" caused by a "hemorrhagic and cardiological shock
which resulted from one bullet in the thorax and one in the abdomen
which struck several vital organs including the heart." The autopsy
conducted by Dr André Bourgault on December 2nd 2005 showed that
"Mr Bennis’ death is due to hemorrhagic and cardiogenic shock which
resulted from two bullet wounds in the thorax and the abdomen. These
wounds perforated several vital organs including the right lung, the
stomach, the spleen, the left kidney and the heart, which caused
serious hemorrhaging." The report explained that "There were two wounds
in the thoraco-abdominal area caused by two bullets shot from a
firearm. The first wound was situated in the second intercostal space
and the left clavicle measuring .9 cm in diameter and the second on the
posterior surface of the left arm measured .7 cm in diameter." The
external examination confirmed that Mohamed also had cuts on his nose,
mouth and forehead and "a superficial third wound (...) on his left
hand at the base of the thumb measuring 3.5 cm in length." (13)
The coroner’s report also revealed the names of the two SPVM officers
implicated in the incident, without saying which one fired on Mohamed:
officers Bernier and Roy of Neighbourhood Station #25. This is how the
coroner explains the circumstances surrounding Bennis’ death: "In the
police report from the SPVM’s Station 25, officers Bernier and Roy were
heading towards (...) Kent Street in order to join personnel
participating in an operation headed by the Quebec Provincial Police
that had been going on since 6:30am. The two officers were walking on
the sidewalk towards the building when Mr Bennis headed southwest in
their direction; when he reached the police he stabbed one of the
officers in his neck and in his right leg for no known reason. The
officer fired on him with his revolver and the individual fell to the
ground." Ambulance services took Mohamed to the Jewish General Hospital
and "tried to revive him," but he was in a "critical condition when he
arrived," and "at 8:04am his death was declared by the doctor in
charge." As for the police officer, he was brought to the Montreal
General Hospital. (14)
Unanswered Questions
On December 7th 2006, the Bennis family’s lawyer Pierre Pâquet
met with Prosecutor James Rondeau at his office. Rondeau read him a
legal opinion which stated that "there is no reason to lay charges
against the police officer involved," but he refused to hand a copy of
this opinion over to the lawyer! Rondeau also told him that he would
have to fill out an Access to Information request in order to receive a
copy of the SPVQ’s report. As the victim’s father said, "We have waited
almost a year for information, and still we have received nothing
official." He added, "Everything is verbal, nothing is concrete" and
"what they have told us is very contradictory." (15)
In the November 9th 2006 edition of their newspaper, Atlas Montreal
denounce "a press release which hardly says anything, which is empty,
and almost anonymous as it comes from an information agency and not
from the office of any authority." Noting that the Coroner’s Report
"did not say anything that the police press releases in December 2005
were not already saying a year ago," they asked "What was the point of
having fifteen investigators work for twelve months if it was for such
meager results?" They also noted that "All of the questions that were
being asked last December 2nd remain unanswered, and there are new
questions too, such as why was the Bennis family’s lawyer denied access
to evidence in this case, forcing him to rely on Access to Information
requests to get around this bizarre ‘secrecy’, having to wait eight
months to see if this would work." In conclusion, "Let us speak
plainly: what is there to hide in the Anas Bennis affair? Who has an
interest in hiding these things, and why?"(16)
A spokesperson from the Minister of Justice told the Gazette that there
would be no other statements beyond this press release. Prosecutor
Rondeau from Rimouski could not be reached for comment, perhaps due to
his "heavy workload"? or another "sick leave"?? As to the SPVM, they
did not respond to any requests for interviews... the Bennis family’s
lawyer Pierre Pâquet stated that "it has been a year that the
family has not been told anything (...) So far all I have encountered
are closed doors. I have been refused access to anything having to do
with the investigation, as if it were all secret. It is very strange,
because if it is as simple as they say I don’t see why the family
cannot be told what happened." Even some sources within the SPVM say
they are frustrated as the lack of transparency in this investigation,
but not for the same reason: they say they are certain the police
officer shot to defend himself from an unprovoked attack... (17)
On November 8th 2006, La Presse quoted Montreal Police Brotherhood
president Yves Francoeur as also denouncing the "abnormally long
procedure" saying that the duration of the inquiry for an incident "as
clear as a mountain stream" is "aberrant and sends the wrong message to
police officers." While he insisted he "sympathizes with Anas Bennis’
father’s pain," Francoeur thinks it is especially hard on "the young
police officer who was stabbed and forced to fire and who has to wait
all this time. He started having doubts." As for Mohamed Anas’ father,
he "questions the entire investigatio" and has stated that "when a
citizen is in a conflict with a police officer, there is another law
which is applied. This decision may not sit well with the Arab and
Muslim community." (18)
In an interview with Atlas Montreal, Pierre Pâquet notes that if
Mohamed had survived, he would have been charged with armed assault on
a police officer, and would have access to any evidence and would have
the chance to cross-examine witnesses. "So," he asks, "why, when he is
dead, should these rights which all citizens enjoy cease to apply? Why
can’t his family get a hold of the file?" He explains, "There are a few
possibilities that I can think of; I have heard 27 different versions
of what happened in this case; I have a lot of unanswered questions in
my head; but all of this does not measure up to one document, written
in black and white, but they tell us we cannot have access to anything
written and this is difficult to accept because I have this horrible
feeling that the basic rights of the victim and his family (...) have
not been respected." (19)
Atlas Montreal asked these questions : "The public would have liked to
know why a copy of the report, sent to the victim’s father and not to
the family’s lawyer as it says in the press release ("I was never
contacted," says Pâquet), is dated January 2006 yet was only
released to the concerned parties several months later ("a typo" was
the official explanation given to the Bennis father). We would have
also liked to know why the final report contains no mention of any
video recording; why, despite Mr Pâquet’s expressed request, this
recording was not safeguarded..." They conclude that "In the final
analysis, we have the overwhelming feeling that someone, somewhere, is
deeply embarrassed by this case, for reasons which remain to be made
clear and which ‘they’ certainly do not want to see made clear..."(20)
The Moroccan newspaper Le Reporter also asks some pertinent questions:
"How is it that a young quebecois, known for his easy going
personality, came to attack a police officer for no reason? (...) How
is it that a young man who weighed only 66 kilos, with no police
record, constituted a serious threat to an entire team of police? To
immobilize the aggressor, could the police not have fired anywhere but
in his heart? The refusal to produce the so-called knife and video
recording of the incident make one think that this is an attempt to
cover up a police mistake just like what happened in the London
subway." (21)
Finally, one of the main questions (perhaps the most important one)
which remain to be answered is that which the father asked back in
December 2005: "Anas left the Mosque at 6:30am, and was killed at
7:20am. But nobody has been able to tell me what happened in those
fifty minutes. Everything else comes after this. So the truth remains
to be seen." (22)
Mass Media Complicity
On his blog, Kersplebedeb has also criticized the role of the media in
this affair: "If the tables were turned – if a cop ended up shot dead
by someone claiming self defense, that the cop had a knife and wanted
to stab them – you can bet the shooter would have already been tried
and found guilty by the media, and certainly would not be walking the
streets. But in this case not only was the shooter never identified in
the media (so we are left guessing as to whether or not he has a known
record of violent or racist behaviour) and the police version of events
uncritically repeated, but the Montreal Gazette (to give one example)
essentially tried to bury the story (pages A7 and A10)." (23)
He adds that "Again: this is a case where the police version of events
was initially the only version presented in the media, and is still the
main version. It is a case where protests by the community have been
downplayed, and reassurances by the authorities have not been
questioned. It is also a case where no reporters have done any real
investigating of their own." He notes that in actual fact "The Gazette
tried to downplay this too – reporter Ann Carroll, who later admitted
not even attending the march, simply wrote that ‘as many as 200 people
rallied’ – while other media reported that ‘hundreds"? (CTV) or even ‘a
thousand’ (Journal de Montreal) people showed up.. None of them gave it
the coverage that it deserved," as it was "the largest demonstration
against a police killing in years (...) and this on the coldest day in
winter." He asks "following the mass protests that surrounded the
police killings of young Black men like Anthony Griffin and Marcellus
Francois in the late 80s/early 90s, and after the Collective Opposed to
Police Brutality and other groups managed to repeatedly call attention
to police killings throughout the 90s… why are reporters so keen on not
challenging the police and not actually reporting? Why are the papers
burying these stories so much more than they did twenty years ago? Why
are we no longer told the name of the cop who kills someone – shit,
looking through the Gazette archives I note that in many cases we are
not even told the name of their dead victims! Is there some new media
protocol for how to handle police killings? Now that’s something that
someone should report on…" (24)
Another interesting fact: an unofficial, or at least "plainclothes",
spokesperson for the SPVM, "Freezbee", posted a text on the Centre des
médias alternatifs du Québec (CMAQ – the Quebec Indymedia
– translator) on November 5th 2006 in which he quotes (without
revealing from where): "The SPVM administration feels it is necessary
to make the results of the investigation public in order to maintain a
sense of trust between citizens and police. While we remain sympathetic
to the family of the deceased, the SPVM is satisfied with the
conclusion reached by the Substitute Prosecutor. The Service would also
like to note that the police officers concerned have returned to work
and are doing well." It must be pointed out that there is no official
statement on the SPVM website, and so this unofficial "statement" from
the SPVM on the CMAQ website seems to be another attempt by the SPVM or
one of its officers to convince people who denounce this police killing
that "the police acted appropriately in this case," according to one of
Freezbee’s comments. (25) It is
worth noting that another "Anonymous" made the same kind of comment on
Kersplebedeb’s blog, stating that "The reason the Gazette is ignoring
this police related death is that it was 100% justified"... (26)
As the people at Atlas Montreal note, what is at stake here is the
confidence people have (or do not have) in the police and the
government. In effect, "The community is greatly disappointed, and this
fragile and vulnerable community may even lose confidence in those that
govern and are charged with protecting citizens and safeguarding our
rights and freedoms. Never mind the cynicism of this administration
which didn’t pass up an opportunity to bill the Bennis father ten
dollars for a copy of the Coroner’s Report and two hundred dollars for
transporting Anas’ body from the site of the incident to the hospital
where he died!" (27) Already last
December the stated that if this turned out to be a case of racial
profiling "It would be serous, very serious (...) It would mean that,
as in other country’s which we will not name, xenophobia is rearing its
head and that the violent death of the younger Bennis will not be the
first, nor the last, case of racial profiling which we will have to
endure and which will bring tragedy to our lives. If it turns out that
this is the case and that the dramatic events on Kent Street were the
result of cultural differences, then punishment – either administrative
or penal – for the police officer concerned will be less important than
making sure that no firearm meant to keep the peace is ever again used
to sow death and disturb the lives of citizens." (28)
Stop Police Brutality and Racism !
As for us, COBP denounced the decision of Prosecutor James Rondeau, the
result of eleven months of what we expected: a cover up of a police
killing that resulted from racial profiling, plain and simple.
Everybody in Montreal should have the right to know if officers Bernier
and Roy have in fact returned to work, and if so in what capacity (desk
work or on the street) and if they are on the street, in what
neighbourhood are they with their guns? It is impossible for us to have
any trust in the SPVM which gets away with murder, the SPVQ which
covers up the truth or the Quebec Minister of Justice which protects
killer cops. The death of Mohamed Anas Bennis is certainly not the
first case of its kind in Montreal: we remember Anthony Griffin, Martin
Suazo, Richard Barnabé, Jean-Pierre Lizotte, Rohan Wilson and
far too many others... We also remember that on February 17th 2006 SPVM
chief of police Yvan Delorme released a statement in which he said he
was "satisfied"? with the decision to not lay any charges against the
police who shot a man to death on July 4th 2005. (29)
The attitude of Yves Francoeur, president of the Montreal Police
Brotherhood, certainly does nothing to make us trust the police. In an
opinion piece he wrote after the January 7th 2006 demonstration he
complained that, "We find it difficult to accept that people are trying
to make Montreal – a city with hardly any racial tensions, compared to
other big cities in North America – look like a banana republic where
the police shoot citizens on sight because of their clothing or race." (30) He also stated in August 2006
that "accusations of racism (...) are unjustified. The Montreal police
are not racist." (31) And yet even
Alain Kashama, a football player with the Montreal Alouettes who was
arrested last week in Little Burgundy, has said that "Yeah, it’s
racism"? (which led to their arrests) and that "That’s what happens
when Black people drive nice cars..." (32)
It is past time to set up an independent public inquiry into the death
of Mohamed Anas Bennis, before any more people fall victim to the SPVM.
One week after Mohamed’s death, the president of the Montreal Police
Brotherhood stated that "banning handguns is an excellent idea" and
that "for years the Brotherhood has supported attempts to control
firearms and impose longer sentences for criminals who use firearms." (33) COBP thinks that it would be an
excellent idea for the SPVM to lead by example by no longer using
firearms and condemning killer cops.
One thing is for sure: the fight against police brutality is far from
over! What’s more, this struggle knows no borders, for police
everywhere kill people: in Oaxaca in Mexico, in Colombia, everywhere...
As they say in Colombia: For the victims of State violence, nor a
moment’s silence, but a lifetime of struggle!
- Communique from the Collective
Opposed to Police Brutality -
(514) 859-9065