After Black man stopped 37 times, eight Quebec police officers cited for racial profiling

Quebec’s police ethics commissioner ruled that a Terrebonne man was racially profiled after he was pulled over by police officers nearly 40 times in less than a year.

The traffic tickets kept piling up for 44-year-old Pierre Marcel Monsanto, who is Black of Hatian origin. Most were settled out of court or thrown out, but to Monsanto there’s seemingly no end to the discrimination he faces on the road.

"I feel like I’m a slave. There is no freedom," he said Thursday.

Monsanto moved to Quebec from Alberta in September 2018. From the time he moved to Terrebonne until August 2019, police checked with Centre de renseignements policiers du Québec (CRPQ) 37 times about his vehicle, according to a March 11 ethics commission decision.

There was one day where he was stopped twice by police.

"Sometimes they just make a U-turn. They’re driving on the opposite side and make a U-turn," he said.

Monsanto filed 12 complaints alleging harassment and discrimination based on his race. The commission ruled in his favour in eight of those complaints, citing eight officers for racial profiling, but dismissed his harassment complaints.

Monsanto often drives his wife's vehicle and was allegedly stopped repeatedly while running errands, taking his children to daycare or going to work. In many instances, Monsanto said his three children were in the car with him.

"'Why they stop you papa?'" he recalled one of his kids asking him in the car. "I don’t tell them the truth to protect them. I say they just need to see my papers."

He said the experience makes him feel unsafe whenever he sees a police officer.

"When the complainant has not committed any offence, he is likely to feel a strong sense of injustice and a loss of trust with the officers of the Terrebonne Police Department," Commissioner Dowd wrote in the lengthy 47-page ruling.

"The Commissioner also brings to the director's attention the even higher, and unexplained high frequency of numerous checks at the CRPQ on the complainant over a relatively short period."

Monsanto sees a police light in his mirror so often that he switched to a smaller car in the hopes it would attract less attention.

Terrebonne police declined to comment on the ruling, but the Centre for Research Action on Race Relations (CRARR), which supported the man with his complaint, calls it one of the worst examples of racial profiling it has seen in the Montreal area.

"This is very excessive, abusive, and very, very concerning," said Fo Niemi, CRARR's executive director, at a news conference.

"In all the years of working against racial profiling, we have never seen a case this serious.

The elected officials and residents of Terrebonne must demand firm measures of prevention and redress."

For now, Monsanto said he’s cutting back on his time behind the wheel. "I avoid driving now," he said, adding that it's not worth all the anxiety and he hopes the ruling will help stop it for good.

Monsanto has also taken his case to the Quebec's Human Rights Commission. 

With files from CTV News' Touria Izri