Montreal officer suspended two days over arrest

A Montreal police officer has been suspended without pay for two days for his behaviour during a 2012 arrest and for later providing false information about the incident in municipal court.

Marc-Antoine Goyette, an officer with the SPVM since 2008, gave false information in municipal court about a suspect’s description and “failed to use proper discretion” while arresting 19-year-old Mark Wiles-Simpson in 2012, the police ethics commission has decided.

On the afternoon of Oct. 3, 2012, police were searching for two suspects who stole a bottle of alcohol from an SAQ on Décarie Blvd. near the Côte-Vertu métro station.

One was described as a skinny, 5-foot-7 aboriginal man with a po- nytail. He was said to be wearing a navy blue jacket. The other suspect was only described as a black male who was taller than the first man.

The first suspect was eventually found on a bench in Bélanger Park. He matched all the details of the description. Wiles-Simpson was sitting on the same bench as the man with his cousin, the ethics commission ruling shows.

The park was across from a McDonald’s restaurant where Wiles-Simpson, a black male, was waiting to start his work shift.

Officers told the cousin to leave. When-Wiles-Simpson-started-walking away, an officer grabbed him by the arm and told him, in French, that he couldn’t leave because they needed to speak with him.

“Don’t touch me, I have done nothing,” Wiles-Simpson said in English, trying to walk away.

An officer grabbed him again and, this time in English, said: “You cannot leave, you’re under detention for theft.”

Wiles-Simpson tried to get out of the hold, at which point he was wrestled to the ground by three police officers and handcuffed. He was told he matched a description they had of someone who had stolen from the SAQ.

The arrest was filmed on a cellphone. In the video, four police officers are on top of Wiles-Simpson while he screams: “I just came from school. I have work right there.”

When the person filming asks why Wiles-Simpson is being arrested, an officer tells him it’s because he stole. He repeats the same information to others watching.

After the arrest, a police officer went to the SAQ to watch the security footage. It showed that the second suspect was wearing all white and a white baseball cap. Wiles-Simpson was dressed in black. He was charged with resisting arrested and charged. He was acquitted in 2014.

Wiles-Simpson said he suffered a sprained ankle, a sprained neck and bruised ribs in the incident.

In court in 2014, Goyette testified that the second suspect was described as wearing black. The original description given never mentioned his attire, however.