SQ officer suspended 35 days without pay for injuring protesters
A Sûreté du Québec constable blamed by the province’s police ethics committee for having injured three protesters during a demonstration in Victoriaville in May of 2012 has been suspended for 35 days without pay.
Denis Burelle was found by the committee not to have used his projectile launcher with “prudence and discernment” during the incident. Ethics commissioner Richard Uticone ordered the sanction based on a joint recommendation from all parties after Brunelle was found at fault in a decision rendered by the committee on Jan. 24.
On May 4, 2012, protesters demonstrated outside Le Victorin hotel in Victoriaville as the Quebec Liberal Party’s general council met inside.
Burelle was one of six officers deployed in five platoons by the SQ and armed with an Arwen 37 projectile launcher capable of firing plastic bullets.
The demonstration turned violent, with some protesters throwing rocks, billiard balls, pieces of pavement, ball bearings, placards and smoke bombs toward police.
Burelle fired 10 times in the direction of the protesters and injured three people, two of them suffering serious face wounds.
Dominique Laliberté-Martineau suffered two jaw fractures, six broken teeth and a lacerated lip. Alexandre Allard went into convulsions after being struck, had an earlobe torn off, a bone in his face fractured and two concussions. Magali Paquin suffered serious injuries to her forearm.
For the ethics committee, which heard the case before it was turned over to the commission for sanction, Burelle “fired too high” and didn’t use his weapon with “prudence and discernment,” and found that while the demonstration may have turned violent, protesters “were in no way threatening to police.”
“Madame Laliberté-Martineau had nothing in her hands and was talking to a friend. Mr. Allard had nothing in his hands. Madame Paquin was holding a cellphone in one and a maraca in the other,” wrote the committee, which also noted Burelle was “overwhelmed by events, having no memory of his using weapon (on) ... May 4, 2012.”
In rendering his decision, the commissioner said it was clear the sanction must be dissuasive and exemplary.
Presse Canadienne