Police Ethics Committee Finds One Laval Officer Was A Racially Profiled Black Man

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The ethics committee of the provincial police has determined that Laval police officer Michaël Boutin acted inappropriately when he wrongfully arrested a disabled black man who filmed him in a gas station parking lot in the spring of 2017.

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In a decision that was made public last week, the Comite de deontologie policière ruled that Boutin violated the Quebec Police Code of Ethics in several ways, namely by behaving as he did due to the race of Pradel Content and by providing a inaccurate reporting of events. The decision establishes that Content’s account of the situation is more credible than Boutin’s, in large part because their exchange was caught on a surveillance camera.

In May 2017, Boutin followed Content to a gas station parking lot on des Laurentides Blvd. in Laval, allegedly because Content was filming the police car while driving (thus violating the Road Safety Code). Boutin said that while trying to talk to Content as he approached him in the parking lot, he was yelling and gesturing wildly. Boutin claims that he moved Content’s phone, which was being used to film him, from his face, pushed it towards his car, and asked him to identify himself, but Content refused.

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Boutin said he arrested Content for refusing to identify himself after allegedly violating the Highway Safety Code. He said that after searching him, putting him in the police car and writing a ticket for using a cell phone while driving, he let Content go, but not before deleting the images Content had taken of him, allegedly with his consent.

Content, however, who had been similarly attacked by police in the past, testified that he only pulled out his phone once he parked in the parking lot because he noticed the officer made a sharp U-turn to follow him for no reason, and I was never told why they detained him until they gave him a ticket after the fact.

Content said that when Boutin got out of his car, he yelled at her to stop filming him, and that he could go to jail for doing so, before taking the phone from his hand. Content said it did not know how the video was removed.

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The police ethics commissioner, who determines which complaints are brought before the committee, said that at one point during his exchange with Content, Boutin said he should be happy to be in Quebec instead of the United States “because they shoot at people like you there. ” ”- although Boutin denies saying that.

The committee’s decision establishes that Content’s account more closely aligns with what is seen in surveillance footage, which shows that from the moment the patrol enters the parking lot and the moment Boutin removes his hand from Content and pushes it, only eight or nine seconds go by. .

“This short period does not allow Boutin to try to talk to Content as he claims,” ​​says the decision. “In fact, the surveillance video shows that when Boutin quickly approaches Content, the latter is immobile and does not ‘gesticulate’. Finally, the video shows that Content is holding his cell phone against his chest and not towards Boutin’s face. “

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“In short, Boutin appears to be a policeman who has lost control of his emotions, as the Commissioner’s prosecutor points out,” the decision reads.

The decision also found that in a report by Boutin months after the event occurred, which he wrote at the request of an inspector because a complaint had been filed against him, Boutin said that Content was yelling about racism and harassment when it approached him. for the first time. , “When we weren’t even stopping him.”

“Boutin’s conduct, the reasons he gives for intercepting the Content, or the inconsistency between these reasons, and the fact that Boutin even mentions that he did not even want to stop him leads the committee to conclude that the Content was treated differently by de Boutin ”, says the decision.

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Boutin also said in that report that verifications were carried out and that he found that Content had been arrested in the past with people known to the police for being involved with street gangs.

In its decision, the committee said that Boutin’s comments about street gangs were “Negative generalizations if not prejudices unrelated to their objective reality”, and which showed that the content was subject to differential treatment, if the only thing they did wrong during their meeting was to violate the Road Safety Code.

“The Committee is of the opinion that Content’s race played a role in Boutin’s decision to arrest him,” the decision reads.

In addition to violating the code of ethics by profiling racial profiling and providing inaccurate reports, The committee found that Boutin also violated the code by snatching Content’s phone from his hand, detaining him for no reason, and removing the video from his phone.

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