Two Montreal police officers cited for striking a man, leaving him stranded
On a summer evening in July 2012, Nicolas Lavoie had several beers at a Jean Leloup concert in the Quartier des spectacles and then continued drinking at a downtown club with friends.
Just after 1:30 a.m., he left the Foufounes Électriques to smoke a cigarette. As he sat on the sidewalk on Ste-Catherine Street, Montreal police constables Luc Gauthier and Alain Poirier drove past in their cruiser and stared at him.
Lavoie, who admitted to being mouthy that evening, demanded to know why they were looking at him.
The officers parked their car and approached Lavoie, telling him he was under arrest for disturbing the peace. Lavoie told a hearing of the police ethics committee that he spat at the officers before being handcuffed, bundled into the cruiser and driven away.
Lavoie testified that one of the officers (Gauthier) struck him in the face several times. When an officer asked him where he lived, he told them he lived in St. Michel.
Gauthier, a 26-year veteran of the Montreal police, and Poirier, who has been on the force for 18 years, testified they gave Lavoie a ticket for disturbing the peace and dropped him off at the intersection of Berri and Viger streets around 2 a.m.
However, about 17 minutes later, a citizen called police to report that a man was walking northbound on the Jacques Cartier Bridge near Parc Jean Drapeau. That man was Lavoie. How Lavoie ended up on the bridge, far from downtown Montreal, was the subject of conflicting testimony at the ethics committee hearing held earlier this year.
The hearing was held to determine whether the officers had violated the Quebec Police Ethics Code.
After reviewing the evidence, the ethics commissioner said he believed that Gauthier and Poirier “were unhappy at being insulted and spat upon by Lavoie and were going to teach him a lesson.”
The police ethics committee announced last week that it had cited Gauthier for striking Lavoie and cited both officers for illegally detaining the Montreal man.
The officers were also cited for writing a false report by saying they had released Lavoie at the intersection of Berri and Viger streets. The committee will make a decision on disciplinary action at the end of June.
Lavoie told the committee Poirier and Gauthier drove him to the other side of the Jacques Cartier Bridge and abandoned him. “We are going to take you out of the car and put you on the ground. Don’t get up until we are gone,” one of the officers said, according to Lavoie. Both constables denied driving Lavoie to Longueuil, and their lawyer suggested Lavoie may have taken a taxi across the bridge.
But in a decision released last week, the police ethics committee said: “The police version of events doesn’t satisfactorily explain the presence of Lavoie on the Jacques Cartier Bridge.”
As Lavoie headed back to Montreal on the bridge, two provincial police officers pulled up and asked him to walk on the sidewalk. Lavoie testified he told the constables, Émelie Gervais and Pier-Anne Paré, that he had been beaten up by Montreal police and asked for a ride to the Montreal side of the bridge.
The officers said they offered to call Lavoie an ambulance, but that he refused. Paré said she told Lavoie to see the police the next day when his mind was clearer.
The ethics committee cleared Paré and Gervais of any wrongdoing.