POLICE TREATMENT CRITICIZED
Man in wheelchair ‘asked for it’
In the end, the man in the wheelchair was told he would be given three tickets for crossing the road.
But after the video surfaced Thursday showing how he was treated after allegedly being “escorted” to the sidewalk, it was Montreal police bearing the brunt of the social outrage.
According to Katherine-Marie Albisi, who posted on Facebook a video she took of the incident, it all began Wednesday just before noon, when the man in the wheelchair found himself in the middle of a downtown intersection with the light about to change.
An officer confronted him and started pushing him “aggressively” to the sidewalk, despite the man’s repeated requests for him to stop.
“It was really horrible. Instead of helping him across the street and recognizing that he was disabled, they pushed him and were swearing at him,” Albisi said. “That’s when (the man in the wheelchair) started swearing and telling them to stop touching him.”
The man was then told in no uncertain terms he would be fined.
“You think you can do whatever you want just because you’re in a chair?” the officer says to the man. “Yeah? I’m going to give you a f----ticket. You asked for it.”
When the man told the officer and his colleague he had no identification on him, they began to rifle through his backpack, slung over the back of his wheelchair, looking for some ID.
Montreal Police Commander Danik Guerrero, of Station 20, disputed some of the details provided by Albisi that do not appear in the video.
“For sure, when there’s a video there’s always a before and an after — here the before was very important,” said Guerrero, who spoke to the officer.
Based on the officer’s account, Guerrero said the man started to cross against the red light and was told to go back. When he did not obey, the police intervened for his safety, as there were trucks coming the other way, Guerrero said.
When they got to the sidewalk, they asked the man for his identification, and the man told them to look in his bag, Guerrero said.
Guerrero could not confirm whether the man will receive any tickets in the mail, but suggested he could be fined for crossing against a red light and disobeying the police officer’s orders.
“When someone refuses to identify himself we can arrest him,” Guerrero added. “But when he gives the authorization to search, the police can search.”
Guerrero did acknowledge that the language used by the officer in question was unacceptable. But safety is more important, he said.
Albisi filmed from the sidewalk on Sherbrooke St., where police officers working overtime are directing traffic around major roadwork.
By 5 p.m. Thursday, the video had been viewed more than 187,000 times and shared 6,057 times.
With three officers ultimately focusing on the man in the wheelchair, Albisi said traffic had become chaotic, with cars everywhere and pedestrians and cyclists crossing in every direction.
When she asked the officers if she could then cross the street, she said they told her that they would give her a ticket if she did — not the other pedestrians already crossing against the light, just her.