Quebec’s independent bureau of investigators is taking over after a 58-year-old man was fatally shot by Montreal police in the Gay Village Montreal Tuesday evening.
The BEI is reporting that police received a call around 7 p.m. concerning a man in crisis who was allegedly demolishing everything inside his apartment.
They say that once they arrived at the scene at the corner of Robillard Ave. and Saint-André St., police found the man holding a screwdriver in each hand. Police tried to subdue him with a taser, but failed to do so.
They also shot plastic bullets, again unsuccessfully. The BEI say police then shot him multiple times.
“I heard them say, ‘Calm down calm down !’ And later I heard about five or six shots, said neighbour Lawrence Dulac.
The man was taken to hospital for treatment, and investigators reported at about 10 p.m. that he had succumbed to his injuries.
Neighbours said the man had lived in the low-income housing unit for eight years. One said the man could often be heard screaming in his apartment and that police intervention was a regular occurrence in the building.
"We heard him screaming. He was often on the balcony, screaming on the balcony," said Dulac.
Another neighbour, Louis Guillemette, said the neighbourhood had many residents who used heavy drugs such as cocaine and heroin.
The building on Robillard St. is run by FOHM, an organization that helps people with very low incomes or who are at risk of becoming homeless.
FOHM’s executive director Claudine Laurin said they began having issues with the victim in the past year.
Laurin said the organization tried to help him, but he recently received an eviction notice from the rental board.
“He was starting to bother other tenants,” she said.
Twelve investigators from the BEI are taking over the investigation and have called on the Surete du Quebec to assist.
The BEI is asking anyone who witnessed the event to contact them online.
Former Surete du Quebec lieutenant Francois Dore, who now works as a police analyst, said it's too early to say if the shooting was justified and the BEI will have to determine what exactly happened before the officers opened fire.
"Did he charge the police officers before they shot?" he said. "The investigation will tell us about that."
Dore added that the only time an officer should fire their weapon is if a life is in danger.
"The person they are doing things with or why they were called, for their safety or for the public's safety," he said. "Firing a gun is the last thing a police officer wants to do. It's a tool and should be considered as a tool but it's not pepper spray or a taser gun."
A command post has also been established at the scene.
It's another deadly police shooting that highlights why Old Brewery Mission CEO Matthew Pearce believes police officers need training on how to deal with people in crisis.
The homeless shelter is working with the Montreal police force to do just that.
“When we talk about de-escalating a situation, that does not include rubber bullets and tasers, so already if they were using those tools, I can't judge them. They may have felt they needed to do so, but they are not techniques to de-escalate a situation.”
