REMEMBERING FREDY
Family and friends gather to honour Fredy Villanueva 10 years after his death
Lilian Maribel Madrid Antunes comforts grandson Deyui Villanueva during a memorial in Montreal North for Fredy Villanueva. It was 10 years ago Thursday that Const. Jean-Loup Lapointe fatally shot the 18-year-old.
The 23 photographs strung alongside a Montreal North parking lot told the story of Fredy Villanueva, shot and killed by a Montreal police officer in the same place 10 years ago Thursday.
There’s a baby Villanueva with fat crayons, drawing a red flower. In others he poses while ice skating, or blows out 15 candles on a bright blue and white birthday cake. They are the everyday artifacts of a child’s life that are precious to a family: a teenage Villanueva sits at a computer in a living room decorated for Christmas, or scrapes food from a plate in a kitchen.
Richard Louisor, who lives in Montreal North, broke out in laughter as he looked at Villanueva’s baby photos.
“It’s very nice to see him like this,” said Louisor, who knew Villanueva. “It’s unjust that he was killed.”
Members of the Villanueva family and their support committee held an event to remember Fredy on Thursday evening. Villanueva was 18 and playing dice with his older brother and friends in a park on the night that Const. Jean-Loup Lapointe fatally shot him in August 2008.
Eighteen family members and others close to Villanueva stood in a semicircle close to the place where Fredy was killed and released white doves into the sky.
Will Prosper began to cry as he admitted he was exhausted and frustrated with 10 years of hearing stereotypes of Montreal North’s youth.
“In our community, our biggest pride is our youth — and everywhere in Quebec, they are demonized. Their names are trashed, they are disrespected and their memories are hidden. We say this is unacceptable and that is the reason we demand a memorial for Fredy,” said Prosper, who helped form the support committee for the Villanuevas.
Montreal North Borough Mayor Christine Black announced at the end of June that they would build a park to honour Villanueva, calling it Parc de l’Espoir. But the announcement upset people who wanted to see a mural, plaque or other acknowledgment of Villanueva.
Parc de l’Espoir will not name him or include his image.
“I personally lived through things with the police that now, I understand as wrong. We know racial profiling very well here,” said Jonathan Duguay, who lives in Montreal North and goes by Big J.
“Fredy changed everything. What did Fredy do for us through his death? He made us realize that wow, we’re living through bizarre things that we may not have understood before. Fredy changed me as a person,” Duguay said.
Other items that decorated the parking lot: posters, T-shirts and other relics of 10 years of community organizing sparked by Villanueva’s killing, and artworks made at a recent gathering at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
Javier Vega, Villanueva’s brother-in-law, said that “nothing has changed” about the police and community relationship in Montreal North. “It’s important to have justice. That’s why we’re here,” Vega said.
“He was a teenager, a young, normal boy. Helping his mother and his family,” said Vega. “We miss him a lot.”
It’s important to have justice. That’s why we’re here. He was a teenager, a young, normal boy . ... We miss him a lot.