The CSST, Quebec's workplace health and safety board, says a protest that degenerated into a riot last August in Montreal North was in part due to "bad planning" and miscommunication within the Montreal police department.

In a report, the CSST questioned the intervention strategies of Montreal police officers in the Aug. 10 protest that followed the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old resident Fredy Villanueva.

The CSST says police should have intervened more quickly, as protesters became increasingly aggressive. Police lost control of the situation due to an "inadequate" operational strategy, the report says.

Incident

By 8 p.m. that night, between 150 and 200 protesters had gathered. Some had started fires, thrown things at police and were vandalizing cars.

At that time, there were 13 police officers and three supervisors. By 9 p.m. there were 20 officers; by 10 p.m. there were 80 officers.

The report also says police officers were lacking protective gear, and that orders were ineffectively communicated.

The police say they were prepared but simply "misevaluated" the situation.

"The expectation was that if we [make] arrests in the community we're going to provoke them and probably we will have more problems," said Jean-Guy Gagnon, with the Montreal Police.

"We were prepared, but the problem was the evaluation of the threats."

Recommendations

The CSST has called on the Montreal police department to carry out three corrective measures: 

  • adequately inform officers about the risks involved in such interventions
  • determine methods and techniques to identify and eliminate those risks
  •  provide training to ensure officers react appropriately when a fellow officer is injured

The Montreal police department has 90 days to implement the recommendations.

With files from The Canadian Press