DAUGHTER’S DISTRESS
Pierre Coriolan’s family suing city over death, claiming excessive force was used
Johanne Coriolan struggles to compose herself at a news conference on Wednesday. Her family announced they are suing the city, claiming police used excessive force in the fatal shooting of her father. ‘I can’t believe the police treat people this way.’
A disturbing cellphone video that captures part of the Montreal police intervention with a mentally ill man prior to a fatal shooting last year shows the officers acted inappropriately and with excessive force, a community activist and the victim’s family said Wednesday.
“Within one minute and 10 seconds, police used a Taser, plastic bullets, their guns and a baton,” said Will Prosper, who organized a press conference on Wednesday at which Pierre Coriolan’s family released the video. “They didn’t have an intervention plan.”
Coriolan’s family announced Wednesday it had filed a lawsuit against the city of Montreal, claiming police were abusive. They are seeking $150,000 in damages. “This intervention was very brutal and violent,” said Virginie Dufresne-Lemire, a lawyer representing the family.
The video, taken by a neighbour of Coriolan, shows four police officers in the narrow hallway, with their weapons drawn, confronting Coriolan, who was brandishing a screwdriver in the throes of a mental health crisis.
The officers use plastic bullets and a stun gun to try to subdue Coriolan, but are unsuccessful.
One of the officers then yells at Coriolan to get on the ground, but he responds that he is “pas capable” (unable).
A police officer then fires two shots, but the video doesn’t show whether live ammunition or plastic bullets are used.
Another officer then approaches the injured man and appears to strike him twice on the arm with a police baton.
Prosper, a former police officer, admonished police for making no attempt to talk to Coriolan to calm him down.
“They should be trying to deescalate the situation,” he said. “They’re surrounding him and yelling and they were armed to the teeth dealing with a man in distress in his apartment.”
He said police also failed to call officers specially trained in crisis intervention. “He was on his knees and wasn’t a threat to anyone,” he said.
Police received a call at 7 p.m. that evening and by the time Urgences Santé arrived at 7:30 p.m., Coriolan was in cardiac arrest. The video shows only four minutes of the intervention. It’s not clear what time police arrived on the scene and what contact they had with Coriolan prior to the neighbour recording the interaction.
Coriolan, 58, died of his injuries in hospital later that night.
His daughter, Johanne Coriolan, who struggled to compose herself throughout the press conference, said she was shocked by how aggressive police were in the video. “I can’t believe the police treat people this way,” she said.
She said her father was a proud man who faced his demons with his head held high. “He never went out without being properly dressed for the occasion,” she said.
At the time he was killed, Coriolan was facing eviction from his apartment in the Gay Village after several complaints from neighbours about excessive noise and behaviour and after he tried to start a fire in his apartment.
On the night of the shooting, neighbours called police when he began destroying his apartment and breaking windows.
Although Quebec authorities say they’re developing strategies and training to decrease the number of fatal confrontations, Prosper said the initiatives aren’t working, especially when police deal with poor, black men with mental illnesses.
Coriolan had lived in the apartment on Robillard Ave. since 2008, but began having behavioural problems in the fall of 2016, according to the director general of a subsidized housing organization that manages the complex.
Montreal police refused on Wednesday to comment on the video because the case in under investigation by the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes, which investigates police shootings.