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Cops seek to block public inquiry into shooting death
Bennis's family asks: 'What have they got to hide?'
The family of Mohamed Anas Bennis can't understand why two Montreal police officers involved in his death in 2005 are seeking to block a public inquiry into the controversial shooting.
"A public inquiry would help clear the air," his sister, Najlaa Bennis, said yesterday. "What have they got to hide?" She declined to comment any further and is waiting for Alain Arsenault, the lawyer who is defending the family's interests, to return from vacation.
A motion submitted to Quebec Superior Court by the Montreal Police Brotherhood this week asked the court to stop the inquiry, ordered June 3 by Quebec's chief coroner Louise Nolet, because it was "useless" - coming two years after a coroner's report - and therefore illegal because it will not shed further light on the circumstances.
Constable Yannick Bernier shot Bennis, 25, who was returning home from a mosque in Côte des Neiges district, after they bumped into each other and Bennis allegedly attacked him with a kitchen knife.
Bernier and his partner, Constable Jonathan Roy, were on duty outside a Kent Ave. apartment building while other police officers were inside executing a search warrant.
The Montreal Police Brotherhood noted the investigation by Quebec City police, a Crown prosecutor, the Police Ethics Commission and Police Ethics Committee - a tribunal which reviewed the commission's findings - found no fault with Bernier's use of his weapon.
Last week, however, the ethics committee ordered a review of Roy's failure to use "intermediate coervice measures" to help subdue Bennis.
In June, lawyers for seven Montreal police officers and the police brotherhood won a similar motion that blocked a coroner's inquiry into the death of Michel Berniquez in 2003 while in police custody.
Berniquez, 45, died at the Montreal Heart Institute after being arrested by police and restrained, face down, on the street.
A coroner's report said cocaine and stimulants he had consumed and an existing heart condition contributed to his death.
The Quebec Coroner's office is appealing the quashing of that inquiry, spokesperson Anne-Marie Lessard said.