SQ officer appeals suspension for high-speed chase
Policeman says he did not endanger anyone while pursuing motorcyclist
Jean-Guy Lajeunesse was in his driveway, working on his car, when he heard the looping ring of a police siren in the distance getting closer. Then came the roaring sound of motorcycle engines.
A municipal councillor in Ste-Marthe-sur-le-Lac, a small Montreal suburb on the north shore of Lac des Deux Montagnes, Lajeunesse walked over to the curb to look down the street.
From there he could see two motorcycles — one belonging to a Sûreté du Québec police officer — approaching at what he eyeballed to be more than 100 km/h. The speed limit on the residential street was 40 km/h.
It was July 6, 2016. The next week, Lajeunesse and another councillor presented a resolution at the town’s monthly council meeting. Filed between zoning modifications, new hire announcements and small contract renewals, it stood out on the agenda: “Police chase — denunciation,” it was titled.
The officer involved in the chase “endangered the population,” the resolution said, by speeding down the “main artery used by children attending the municipality’s day camps, at a time when many children were likely to be returning home by foot or by bike.”
The resolution was passed unanimously and a copy of the document was sent to the provincial police ethics committee, which agreed to look into it.
Last month, Mathieu Brisson, an officer with more than 15 years of experience, was sanctioned with a 20-day suspension without pay for his actions that day. On April 11, he filed an appeal of both the decision and his sanction, arguing the committee misinterpreted what happened and didn’t consider his explanations.
According to the case documents, the chase lasted a total of 7.2 kilometres, starting when Brisson captured a motorcycle on his radar heading down Highway 640 at 163 km/h.
When he got close enough to the driver, Brisson noticed his licence plate started with a “V.” To him, that signalled something was amiss: in Quebec, plates starting with the letter “V” are reserved for off-road or all-terrain vehicles.
Now suspicious, he continued to chase the motorcycle, sirens blaring. It’s believed he reached a speed of 205 km/h on the highway, the fastest his motorcycle could go.
The chase took place on the highway, then onto Exit 8 toward Ste-Marthe-sur-le-Lac, and onto des Promenades Blvd. until Oka Rd. At that point, the suspect turned onto Louise St., where Lajeunesse was working on his car. It was roughly 2:45 p.m.
As they entered the more residential sector, Brisson says he respected every traffic light, while the suspect zig-zagged between cars and drove through a total of six red lights.
At no time did Brisson use his radio to call in the chase to police headquarters and ask for assistance.
“I was very concentrated on my immediate environment,” he wrote in his police report about the incident, “and it would have been dangerous for me, on a motorcycle, to describe the chase while pressing a button and changing speeds with the same hand.”
The chase eventually ended, an estimated three minutes after starting, when the suspect lost control of his motorcycle after entering a curve and hitting a car. He then tried to make a run for it, sprinting across a lawn and jumping over cedar hedges. Brisson, arriving shortly afterward, ditched his motorcycle and ran after him.
There was a brief struggle in a garden. The suspect grabbed a stick and hit Brisson over the head. With the help of a former police officer who happened to witness the scene, Brisson finally managed to handcuff the man.
In its analysis, the ethics committee needed to decide whether Brisson “used judgment and exercised care” while driving his motorcycle, as the provincial police ethics code stipulates. It found he did not.
Given the chase entered a residential sector, “officer Brisson needed to either ask for assistance or abandon the chase, which he omitted to do,” it ruled.
“There was a risk for his own safety and the safety of the motorcyclist, as well as motorists or pedestrians who could have been crossing the road,” it said, adding there was a possibility of the chase ending in someone being severely injured.
“Officer Brisson misjudged the chase’s inherent risks.”
At the hearings for his sanction, Brisson’s lawyer suggested a fourday suspension without pay would be fair. The administrative judge hearing the case decided on a 20day suspension.
In his appeal notice, recently made public at the Montreal courthouse, Brisson argued it was false to say he endangered anyone during the chase.
The officer made sure he had a clear path before speeding down the residential street, the notice says, and remained “in control of his motorcycle” at all times.
He also argued that the committee overlooked the importance of the fake licence plate on the motorcycle — to Brisson, it meant the suspect didn’t want to be known and it was an “excellent indicator” he could have been en route to committing a more serious crime.
Brisson is asking for the citation against him to be thrown out.