MONTREAL -- Eight years after an incident of racial profiling in Longueuil, a long legal battle over it is finally over, with the city deciding it won't contest a legal loss before the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal.
That also means that some changes are coming to Longueuil, soon.
It's obligated to begin implementing certain things next year, including collecting race-related data on who police decide to pull over and giving police new training about racism and racial profiling.
The case was that of Joel DeBellefeuille, who argued before the Quebec Human Rights Commission that he'd been racially profiled when South Shore police followed him and his family in the car one morning in 2012 as they went to drop his baby son at daycare.
It was just one of many similar incidents he'd experienced over his lifetime, he said. The Commission ended up siding with him, and then the Human Rights Tribunal after the city contested the ruling.
He said he had been stopped by police in about a dozen incidents going back to 2009.
DeBellefeuille has been awarded $12,000 in damages, including $2,000 from one of the officers who followed him and pulled him over.
On Thursday he said he was very relieved to have the case over and elated that it had led to bigger changes across the South Shore police system.
Watch the video above to see DeBellefueuille's interview.
