28-year-old police officer Mathieu Paré was convicted of assault with a weapon causing injuries to an Indigenous man and instigating his colleague to make a false statement in order to cover himself. He is the sixth police officer to be convicted following complaints filed by Indigenous people since 2015, according to a compilation by the To have to.
The events take place in Salluit, in northern Quebec, on the evening of May 7, 2019. It is the last shift of police officer Mathieu Paré, who is about to be transferred to another community. ” At the beginning of [son quart de travail], he mentions to his partner that he wants it to brew, ”says Judge Jean-Pierre Gervais in his decision, made Thursday at the Val-d’Or courthouse.
Following a call for violence, the duo went to Joanasie Angutigirk’s home and arrested the man, who was intoxicated. The police put Mr. Angutigirk in the back seat of the van and walk towards the police station. Mathieu Paré, who is at the wheel, smiles at his colleague, saying: “Hey hey hey”, then brakes suddenly. The passenger’s head then struck the window separating the front of the passenger compartment from the rear, causing an injury to Mr. Angutigirk’s forehead. He is bleeding profusely, which will force the police to take him to the infirmary for him to have stitches done.
At the beginning of [son quart de travail], he mentions to his partner that he wants it to brew
In the car, the agent Camille Du Sablon “then looks at her colleague and asks him:“ what did you do ”? To which he replies: “I didn’t think it was going to bleed like that” ”.
Voluntary gesture
Back at the station, agent Paré asked his colleague to indicate in his report that there were children in the street to explain this sudden braking, adding that ” anyway, he is a woman’s drummer ”. Agent Du Sablon will instead report the events to her superiors, which will lead to charges being laid against Mathieu Paré.
The policewoman claims not to have seen children, but admits that she did not have her eyes on the road when braking, since she was speaking to the passenger in the back of the vehicle. The passenger as well as his neighbor, who was smoking on his balcony, also maintain that they saw nothing on the road at the time of the facts.
The accused refrained from presenting a defense. Returning to the facts which were presented before him, Judge Gervais considers that it was a “voluntary gesture”.
“His subsequent reactions as well as his request that the report indicate that there was the presence of children in the street and the terms chosen then can only strengthen the conviction of the Court in this direction”, adds the judge.
Mathieu Paré was found guilty of assaulting Joanasie Angutigirk and of having advised Camille Du Sablon to commit a criminal offense, that is to obstruct justice by writing an inaccurate report. The parties will return to the judge on November 3 in Val-d’Or for observations on the sentence.
Last December, The duty reported that 231 complaints had been filed against police officers by Aboriginals since 2015. Following investigations by the SPVM or the Independent Investigations Bureau, 17 police officers were formally accused. Several of these cases, including that of Mathieu Paré, were then still before the courts. Mathieu Paré is therefore the sixth police officer to have been found guilty at the end of the proceedings. Two were acquitted, two died before the end of the court process, and a judge ordered a stay in another case. Six files are still in progress.
Watch video
Reference-feedproxy.google.com