A Montreal police officer broke down and cried at a coroner's inquest Tuesday as she was grilled about her partner's deadly shooting of teenager Fredy Villanueva.

Stephanie Pilotte cracked under intense examination at the Montreal courthouse from a member of an anti police brutality group who represents the Villanueva family.

Pilotte's partner, Jean-Loup Lapointe, shot and killed Villanueva, 18, in August 2008. The shooting triggered riots in which a police officer was shot in the leg, and it highlighted tensions and mistrust between officers and youths in Montreal North.

CTV's Stephane Giroux says the victim's rights advocate who questioned Pilotte Tuesday is not a lawyer but has the right to examine witnesses at the inquiry.

"He's been hammering Ms. Pilotte since this morning," said Giroux.

"He was asking her, ‘After Fredy Villanueva was shot, why didn't you give him first aid? Why didn't you try harder to stop the blood flow to keep him alive? Don't you think he would still be alive today?' And then it was just too much for Pilotte. She began to cry."

Coroner Andre Perreault ordered a break in the proceedings so that Pilotte could compose herself.

Lack of training

While on the stand, Pilotte told the coroner that she had little training on dealing with gangs, even though she was patrolling a part of town plagued by street gangs.

"At the time, I didn't know exactly what a street gang was. It wasn't clear. I didn't know what they looked like," she said.

Pilotte testified earlier that part of her patrol duties with Lapointe involved keeping an eye on street gang activities.

Lawyers for the Villanueva family were stunned by Pilotte's statements.

"Here we have someone who's a police officer, with a gun, and the power to arrest, who has no idea what we're talking about when it comes to street gangs," said lawyer Alain Arsenault.

Lawyers also pointed out that Pilotte insists she never heard her partner yelling at the crowd surrounding them to back off, before he fired the shot that killed Villanueva.

"There's a lot of contradictions to be confirmed by Mr. Lapointe," said lawyer Peter Georges-Louis.

Lapointe testifies

Jean-Loup Lapointe took the stand briefly in the afternoon, but he didn't have time to talk about the night of the shooting.

He described how he worked with street gangs, and explained that patrolling teams carry a booklet with them, which lists known gang members and important details about them.

The officers are asked to update this information whenever possible, he said.

One of the men listed in Lapointe's book turned out to be Jeffrey Sagor Metellus, who was also wounded by gunfire on the night Villanueva died.

Previous testimony

Pilotte first took the stand in December and said she and Lapointe were attacked before Lapointe opened fire. She said they had tried to arrest Fredy's older brother, Dany when he became agitated and began to resist.

But Pilotte said the young man refused to co-operate and they could not handcuff him.

She says he pushed her against a police cruiser, and pushed Lapointe to the ground as he was trying to put on the cuffs.

Then Pilotte said four other young men ganged up on them and refused to listen to instructions to back off.

That's when Lapointe drew his gun and fired several shots, hitting Fredy Villanueva and two other youths.

Mandate

Aside from probing the events surrounding the shooting, Justice Perreault will also examine the larger issue of racial profiling by Montreal police.

The coroner suggested racial profiling had occurred after a lawyer for one of the victims asked Pilotte if her botched arrest of Dany Villanueva was motivated by an internal directive asking police to keep the heat on street-gang members and their entourage.

Police claim they wanted to arrest the elder Villanueva for illegal gambling in a city park, and the force is objecting to the line of questioning because it might reveal confidential investigation techniques.

The inquest is being broken up into several stints a few weeks at time because of the litany of lawyers and witnesses.

Although the identities of the two officers involved can be published, their photos are protected by a publication ban after their lawyers argued that their safety would be compromised.