Montreal cops who tackled Black man buying milk suspended for a record 30 days without pay

Two Montreal police officers who racially profiled a 54-year-old buying milk in 2017 will be suspended without pay for 30 days, the police ethics committee has ruled.

The suspension comes four months after the ethics committee ruled the two officers were in the wrong. As a penalty, it sets a new record, according to one advocacy group.

"I'm very enthused that the fact that the ethics committee has decided to take what happened to me so seriously, in regards to their examination of the events. They were very, very harsh in their declaration of the conduct of the police, both during the intervention and also in their behaviour after the intervention," said Errol Burke, the victim, at a news conference on Thursday morning.

The decision on the suspension is dated from last week, on Feb. 4. The two officers, Pierre Auger and Jean-Philippe Théorêt, came before the committee last year and were found in October to have violated police ethics. The committee took longer to decide on sanctions for the two.

"This is a decision that's important because it's the first time in our work that we've seen such a strong and firm of decision against racial profiling," said Fo Niemi, the head of the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations, or CRARR.

Five years ago, in February 2017, 54-year-old Burke was buying milk at a depanneur on Décarie Blvd. when officers pinned him to the ground at gunpoint and handcuffed him.

It was a case of mistaken identity, but one that the officers were hard-pressed to justify: they were looking for a stabbing suspect who was described as 18 years old, 6'1" and wearing clothing very different from what Burke was wearing.

Burke is not only much older but is biracial and four inches shorter than the suspect, according to CRARR.

The police ethics committee found the two officers had used excessive force, committed acts based on race or colour, and made an unlawful arrest.

Burke said he had mixed feeling about the suspension, and became emotional when discussing the ordeal.

"Well, the way I feel about it is that there could be more than that. I really feel that there needs to be harder penalties to help dissuade this kind of, I guess what I would call arrogant behaviour by the police, against people who haven't committed any crimes. You know, it's hard for me to put into words how stressful it is to deal with like a situation over five years waiting to have this come to light," he said.

In 2020, Quebec's Human Rights Commission also heard the case, ruling in Burke's favour as well. It   ordered the police service to pay him $45,000 in a non-binding decision. There will be hearings before the Human Rights Tribunal in fall 2022, CRARR said.

Montreal police haven't yet been reached for comment on the suspension. 

In its ruling this month, the committee wrote that racial profiling is a "particularly pernicious" form of discrimination in that it affects people who are completely innocent, and because it's based on a series of conscious and unconscious beliefs on the part of police.

Nonetheless, they called it a "daily reality" for many visible minorities and a "serious violation."

The committee noted that for the two officers, it wasn't working in their favour that they continued to defend their actions and argue that they'd been justified.

It also acknowledged that it has doled out very few sanctions for racial profiling and that every case that sets a precedent is markedly different.

In the end, it was Auger and Théorêt's insistence on defending their actions that "convinced" the committee that a 30-day suspension was justified, it wrote.

The officers continued "to conceal their true motive, namely racial profiling," the committee wrote.

The strong language marked a change for the committee, which at first dismissed Burke's complaint in 2017, then agreed to hear it after an appeal.