Video shows driver strike infant in stroller at Montreal intersection; police investigating

A one-year-old child has survived a hit-and-run after a woman's stroller was struck by a vehicle while she was crossing the street in Montreal's Outremont borough last week, police say.

The incident was captured by a surveillance camera outside the home of a resident who lives near the site of the crash, at the intersection of Bloomfield and Lajoie avenues.

The video was posted online as community members are shocked by the incident and are hoping the driver is found by police.

The video shows the driver slowly approach the intersection, but instead of stopping at the stop sign, the vehicle continues driving, pushing the stroller into the street.

The person pushing the stroller does not appear to be struck by the vehicle.

The homeowner who recorded the video confirmed to CTV News it was recorded the afternoon of Nov. 16.

Paramedics and Montreal police said they received a 911 call around 2:40 p.m. and responded to the scene of the crash.

Feeling shaken after watching a video of a car accelerating to hit a baby carriage in Outremont. Members of our community are looking for information to identify the driver of the car. Fortunately, the baby is ok. It happened November 16 at Bloomfield and Lajoie. @LDesbois_Outrmt pic.twitter.com/MIb5KQJzsw

— Sarah Dorner (@sarahdorner) November 22, 2022

When the police officer arrived the woman and child had already been sent to hospital as a precaution. The infant was uninjured.

“Luckily, in the stroller, the baby was really well attached,” said police spokesperson Jean-Pierre Brabant.

The baby “did not fall from the stroller, so that avoided really major injuries.”

"Like all of you, I am in shock after watching this video," wrote Outremont Mayor Laurent Desbois in a tweet late Tuesday night.

"I am in communication with the SPVM and I hope that they will be able to quickly identify the driver of the vehicle."

Police said the suspect vehicle was black but did not have any other descriptions.

The police investigation is still ongoing. Anyone with information on the incident is encouraged to contact police through the Info-Crime line: [phone].

CONCERNS OVER MOTIVATION

Community members are waiting eagerly for more information from police as some fear the act may have been intentional.

Mayer Feig, a community activist and a director of Hatzoloh of Montreal, a Jewish first responders service, said he’s hoping the investigation uncovers more details.

“Either it was just a very distracted driver. Or it was a deliberate act,” he said. “We trust the police that they will do their investigation thoroughly and find the person.”

Feig says the woman and child are members of a large Hasidic Jewish community in Montreal’s Outremont Borough.

“They look very Jewish, they dress differently than others,” said Marvin Rotrand, National Human Rights Director for B’nai Brith, a Jewish advocacy group which has opened its own investigation into the incident on concerns that the event was hate-related.

“This is something we will monitor as a possible anti-Semitic incident,” he said.

Police are not ruling out the possibility that hate was a contributing factor, but they say it’s too early to conclude anything. Quebec’s Council of Hasidic Jews wrote a public statement Wednesday urging community members to maintain “the utmost caution in any premature evaluation of this unfortunate event.”

“At this time in the investigation, we don’t have much information,” said Brabant. “We met with some witnesses, we have some footage from different surveillance cameras.”

Quebec’s Public Security Minister Francois Bonnardel called the incident a “horrible situation.”

“There is an inquiry right now,” he said on Wednesday. “We’ll see what happened, why this happened, and after that, we will get some additional answers.”