Homicide victim was recently released from prison
Man, 33, tied to Hells Angels, vowed to continue life of crime
The city's latest homicide victim was a man tied to the Hells Angels who recently conceded he was a criminal and had no intention of changing.
Charles Olivier Boucher-savard, 33, died at a hospital Thursday after having been shot multiple times near Lafontaine Park Wednesday night. In September, he was released from a federal penitentiary after having served two-thirds of a sentence he received for stabbing a person tied to the Luppino family, a Mafia clan based in Hamilton, Ont., in April 2018.
You explained that you are a criminal and had no intention in changing.
A Montreal police spokesperson said first responders answering a 911 call made before 10 p.m. Wednesday found Boucher- Savard near the corner of des Érables Ave. and Sherbrooke St. in the Ville-marie borough.
He was found lying on the ground, unconscious and injured by “more than one” gunshot wound to the upper body, the spokesperson said. Two people located nearby were arrested and questioned, but they might only face charges related to a firearm or firearms.
According to the summary of a decision made by the Parole Board of Canada on Sept. 8, Boucher-savard refused to have a parole hearing during 2020 and opted instead to wait until September so he could automatically qualify for statutory release after reaching the two-thirds mark of the sentence he had left for stabbing the person with Mafia ties. The victim is described in the parole decision as “being linked to an organized crime family.”
The parole board's decision notes how, in October 2020, Boucher-savard told his parole officer that he had no interest in taking part in rehabilitation programs.
“You explained that you are a criminal and had no intention in changing,” the parole board wrote. Earlier this year, Boucher-savard changed his mind and asked to take part in a program, but the board was informed he probably only did this to avoid having a condition imposed on his release requiring that he reside at a halfway house.
The board decided to impose the condition after it was informed that Boucher-savard was alleged to have been the leader of a group of inmates who were using drones to smuggle contraband into their penitentiary.
At the time of his release hearing in September, Correctional Service Canada believed he was tied to the Hells Angels and he was rejected as a candidate at two halfway houses.
In 2009, Boucher-savard was among more than two dozen people arrested in Project Machine, an investigation into a drug trafficking network led by the Hells Angels. In that case, he pleaded guilty to drug trafficking, conspiracy and gangsterism charges and was sentenced in 2010 to a 35-month prison term.
While Boucher- Savard was originally charged with attempting to murder the victim he stabbed in Hamilton, he eventually pleaded guilty to aggravated assault despite having stabbed the man four times with a small knife.
Boucher-savard and two other men broke into a home by forcing their way in through a door using a ceramic toilet seat cover. The blade of the knife broke off inside the victim's stomach and he fled his home. Boucher-savard and his accomplices also fled before police arrived. He was arrested more than a year later, while detained in a different case involving handguns discovered in a hotel room after he and another career criminal form Montreal were arrested in Toronto while purchasing crack cocaine. His DNA had been recovered from the handle of the knife used to stab the victim.
The homicide was the 35th reported on the territory covered by the Montreal police so far this year.
There were only 25 homicides reported during all of 2020. The last time the Montreal police investigated this many homicides in one year was in 2012 when they also investigated 35.