Quebec police watchdog gave biased account of Koray Kevin Celik's death: Court of Appeal

The Quebec Court of Appeal is upholding a decision that found the province's police watchdog, the BEI, "lacked impartiality" in its description of a Montreal police intervention involving the death of a young man.

In 2021, the family of 28-year-old Koray Kevin Celik sued the BEI (Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes) for issuing what was, in their view, a biased press release detailing the moments before their son's death.

The family won their case and was awarded $30,000 in damages, but it was appealed. Then, in December 2023, the justice system once again sided with the Celiks. While Judge Simon Ruel did not agree with the trial judge's assessments in their entirety, he concurred that the BEI's press release was biased and that the ruling was fair. 

"The Court of Appeal has confirmed that the trial judge didn't err in law and [it found] that the press release was biased in favour of the officers, which is what the Celik family had had claimed all along," the family's lawyer, Francois Mainguy, told CTV News in an interview Saturday.

DIFFERING ACCOUNTS

Koray Kevin Celik died on March 6, 2017 after police were called to his family's home in Île-Bizard.

According to court documents, Celik was in distress and had consumed alcohol and medication prescribed by his dentist. His parents phoned 911 to prevent him from getting behind the wheel.

He died following an altercation with police officers. In its press release, the BEI said Celik was aggressive towards the four officers involved and "didn't obey their orders."

But his parents, who witnessed the altercation, said the police response was disproportionate, alleging officers beat their son to the ground before he stopped breathing.

"The family has always maintained that Koray was calm when the officers arrived, and that it was the officers who provoked him and and quite unnecessarily attacked him," said Mainguy.

While Celik's death was ultimately caused by an adverse reaction to the alcohol and drugs in his system, a coroner concluded officers used excessive force and said "the outcome could have been quite different" otherwise. 

The Crown prosecutor did not press criminal charges against the officers involved. But, according to Mainguy, the Celik family is hopeful their lawsuit will inspire a reversal of this decision.

"Upon confirmation that the work of the BEI was biased, we therefore infer that the investigation must have been tainted by the same bias."  

With files from CTV's Olivia O'Malley.