After putting at least one officer under internal investigation last week over a disturbing viral video, Montreal police face another, external challenge.
The video showed an officer pushing a homeless man in Chinatown so hard that he went head-first into a concrete block.
A witness, the man who filmed it, told CTV News that the other officer had previously dismantled a makeshift shelter so that a wooden pallet fell on the man’s head.
Now, the Black Coalition of Quebec has lodged two complaints about at least one of those officers’ apparent rough treatment.
The video is so grainy it’s difficult to see at first, but the man in question is Black — he is an immigrant from Senegal who has been interviewed by at least two Montreal media outlets in the last week.
Max Stanley Bazin, the president of the Black Coalition of Quebec, told CTV News that his group has made formal complaints to both the Quebec Police Ethics Committee and the Quebec Human Rights Commission.
“It’s an abuse of police force,” Bazin said. “If the police officer wanted to check the man’s ID or talk to him, he wouldn’t push him away. It makes no sense and it’s completely unjustified.”
Bazin added that he believes the incident was a case of racial and social profiling.
Bader Niang, the victim, told media this week that he had not provoked the police officer.
Advocates for Montrealers who live on the streets said last week they also found the violence shocking and unjustified.
James Hughes, the CEO of the Old Brewery Mission, said that it’s “the exact opposite” of how his shelter staff train young officers to act towards the homeless, in training sessions endorsed by Montreal police management.