Police chief, Coderre apologize for raids
Just a few days after Canada Montreal Pride 2017 made a statement calling a Montreal police intervention “excessive,” police chief Philippe Pichet said sorry to the LGBTQ community.
The public apology addressed the violent raids on gay bars that took place in the city from the 1960s to the 1990s. Some of the bars’ queer patrons would be put in jail, doors would be broken down and machine guns were used at some raids.
“These actions compromised the dignity of these people,” Pichet said at city hall on Friday. As society has evolved to become more sensitive to these issues, so too has the Montreal police force, he added.
Several of the city’s LGBTQ representatives were invited to city hall for the apology, including Montreal Pride president and founder Éric Pineault. Many of them signed the city’s Golden Book afterward.
Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre was also present, and followed up on his promise to “reconcile and apologize” to the city’s LGBTQ community.
“We had a tainted past in certain areas, and … the best way to reconcile is to make sure that we recognize what happened,” he said.
Coderre added that the city will put together a working group to develop a sexual diversity and gender plurality policy. This would involve a code of ethics that ensures the city develops adequate vocabulary, proper infrastructure — like gender-neutral bathrooms — and a liaison agent for the LGBTQ community.
“We want to ensure that safety is also taken into consideration,” Coderre said.
He commended Simon Durocher, the commander of the Montreal police’s Station 22, located in the gay village. “The opening of the Station 22 in the village was an important step to improving our relations,” Pichet said.
“Its commander and his colleagues work year-round with organizations and workers in the community so we can progress.”
The apology came about a week after Projet Montréal called on the city and its police force to apologize for the raids, and a few days before the city’s annual Pride parade. This year, Pride Canada is holding its national, weeklong festival in Montreal, which ends Sunday with the parade.
The festival, organized by Canada Pride and Montreal Pride, is called Canada Pride Montreal 2017. The conglomerate organization posted on Facebook Tuesday, calling a Montreal police intervention “excessive.”
According to the post, two Montreal police officers entered a safe space for LGBTQ and people of colour at Parc des Faubourgs. Police apprehended “one queer individual who was in possession of some pot,” the post reads.
“We made sure of their wellbeing after this traumatizing incident, an incident that resonates with the daily acts of oppression faced by queer trans people of colour.”
The post went on to note that this intervention goes against the reconciliation process with the LGBTQ community.
“Just like in our previous editions, no police officers will be marching this year in the parade,” the post concluded.
But Pichet said Friday that the Montreal police force has an “excellent relationship” with the LGBTQ community, and that some of its members are in the department’s ranks.
“At the SPVM, we’ve learned a lot in recent years, with the support of the LGBTQ community,” he said. “We chose to be part of the solution.”
He added that Montreal police are committed to reconciliation with the community. “(We want to ensure) that LGBTQ people who are victims of criminal acts have a way to denounce it in a confidential manner,” Pichet said.
He encouraged any member of the LGBTQ community to report any hate crime they might experience, and noted the importance of denouncing these types of actions in order to prevent them.
A hate crime is an action that impacts an individual’s sense of safety, he said.
“There is still work to do, but we are determined to have every citizen be able to walk around visibly in their neighbourhood without being afraid for their safety,” he said. “I personally commit to this.”
Pineault spoke at the event, saying the city and police force were “going in the right direction.”
“In apologizing, we are really turning the page,” he said. “We will be able to progress from here.”