Teenager’s death now considered homicide

17-year-old died after fall during altercation in Côte St-Luc

Montreal police officials say the altercation in Côte St-Luc on Thursday evening that led to the death of a 17-year-old boy is now being investigated as a homicide.

“The first information gathered from witnesses at the scene was that the 17-year-old fell and hit his head during an altercation with a woman he was trying to rob,” said Constable Jean-Pierre Brabant Friday evening.

But he later said a new witness has come forward, a 19-year-old man now being considered an important witness, who countered those earlier reports.

The death is now being investigated as Montreal’s 21st homicide of 2016.

Police were called around 7:45 p.m. Thursday to the corner of Westover Rd. and Westminster Ave.

Brabant said the boy was found on the ground and died later in a hospital.

An autopsy has been done, and other injuries were found on his body. Brabant could not reveal the nature of those injuries, but he said they were among the elements that have led police to transfer the case to the major crimes unit as a homicide investigation.

Brabant said investigators will question again a 19-year-old woman and a 15-year-old boy who were both on the scene, and investigators are examining footage from security cameras from the area. No charges have been laid. A family member of the teenager who died said the boy didn’t have a criminal record and that the family was upset at initial reports that he was involved in an attempted robbery.

“He was a good kid, certainly not a gangster,” the boy’s uncle told the Montreal Gazette.