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Alarming number of Quebecers have died at police hands

53 people have been killed since 2005, and police refuse to release details

by Henry Aubin
Source: Montreal Gazette September 8, 2007

Quebec's public security department, which oversees police across the province, is upset with media criticism of the way it handles police shootings of civilians. So a senior department official held a briefing the other day to set whiners such as me straight.

Far from lessening my concerns, the exercise intensified them. Let me count the ways.

First, an alarming statistic was tucked away in the appendix to the documents handed to reporters. Since the start of 2005, 53 civilians (plus two police officers) have died in police operations across the province. Another 29 people have been wounded.

The death toll works out to an average of 20 per year. The phenomenon of deaths at the hands of police is thus far more common than has been appreciated.

The public hears little about individual cases. The media, far from being alarmist, are actually quiescent. The ongoing attention The Gazette has been giving to the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of Mohamed Anas Bennis, shot twice by Montreal police on a Côte de Neiges sidewalk in 2005, is the exception. The reason is that the victim's persevering sister keeps demanding that these circumstances be made public, as well she should. Many other cases, just as murky, blow over after a day or two. The victims lack such inquisitive relatives or friends.

Second, the official who met with reporters, Liette Larrivée, said her department is not considering changing its present policy for dealing with death or injury at the hands of police.

Let's recall just how secretive that policy is.

Let's say a police officer repeatedly shoots and kills a fleeing suspect. Under the department's procedure, another police force would investigate and submit its report to provincial prosecutors.

If the prosecutor believes the officer was criminally negligent or committed some other crime, the circumstances will come to light if the case goes to trial. If, however, no charges are laid, the results of the police probe would stay secret.

To be sure, if a close relative of the deceased insists on it, the department might tell him or her of the report's contents at a private meeting. But that's hardly adequate. The opportunity exists for officials to spin the report, leaving out certain findings. And the relative would not be able to read, much less keep, the actual document.

The process thus hinders public answers to key questions. Was the suspect armed? Did the suspect pose a realistic threat to the officer or to others (the only circumstances in which police rules allow officers to use their guns)? If the suspect was indeed a threat, did it take so many bullets to stop that threat? (Some victims are bullet-riddled.) Is the report thorough? Without answers, the public cannot judge whether the police behaved responsibly or recklessly.

In all the cases involving 53 civilians killed and 29 injured, the department will not say how many officers were deemed to have broken the law.

If that is not being furtive, I don't know what is.

The public is entitled to ask: Has this process resulted in charges against even a single officer? (Certainly no such case leaps to mind.)

And, finally, here's the ultimate outrage.

Larrivée said the government cannot make investigators' reports public because Quebec's access-to-information law ties its hands. She points to Article 14.

That article bars a public institution from releasing information that - among other things - "would likely ... endanger the safety of a person" or "cause prejudice ... to the subject of the information." Public Security Minister Jacques Dupuis might say that releasing a report could in some rare cases "endanger the safety" of an officer or "cause prejudice" to one. Fine, let's be generous and give him that. But then the simple solution would be to make the report public while blacking out individuals' names. The public needs to know the circumstances.

Most cops are diligent and careful. What's wrong is how the system handles the exceptions. Getting outside police forces to probe these cases is supposed to lend an aura of impartiality. But the absence of evidence of even occasional harsh findings deprives the policy of credibility. The policy is a licence for police misconduct.