The Quebec coroner's office has released its report into the death of Montreal teenager Fredy Villanueva, who was shot and killed during a confrontation with police in August 2008.

The coroner's report, released Tuesday, says the unarmed 18-year-old didn't deserve to die for his actions.

"I doubt if Fredy Villanueva even thought about the risk of his actions," wrote Quebec court Judge Andre Perreault. "He probably did not know that Const. Lapointe could perceive his actions, combined with that of his friends, as an act of aggression that could be seen as threatening his life or that of his partner."

Villanueva was shot and killed on Aug. 9, 2008 by Const. Jean-Loup Lapointe after he was found playing an illegal game of dice with his brother and three friends in Montreal's Henri-Bourassa Park.

The death sparked rioting and the acknowledgment of racial tension in Montreal North.

The report found that Villanueva's death was the result of a number of human factors, which, when taken on their own, could not justify the end result.

"Thousands of offences as trivial as playing dice in a park are subject to annual police interventions that all go well, even when the police and citizens do not agree on whether the offence has indeed been committed," Perreault noted.

The French-language report is available on the coroner's website.

Villanueva's mother, Lilian, said Tuesday she has waited for a long time for the report into her son's death.

"My son Fredy died for nothing," she tearfully told reporters during a press conference.

The family's lawyer Peter Georges-Louis said the report makes it clear that the police officers’ response was unjustified. "Fredy wasn't a threat," he said.

He pointed out that the report said Lapointe fired repeatedly at Villanueva and two other young men because he felt threatened, while his partner Stephanie Pilotte never did.

A police investigation cleared the officers involved in the shooting of any wrongdoing and no criminal charges were laid.

Following the shooting, Lapointe said the reason he opened fire was because he was afraid that the gang of young men he was confronting would be able to take his firearm.

Perreault was particularly critical of how the post-shooting investigation was handled, which he said was subject to numerous gaffes.

The coroner's report says both Montreal police and officers from the Surete du Quebec tasked with investigating the shooting seemed to go out of their way to avoid talking Lapointe or his partner Const. Stephanie Pilotte.

It was a week later when Lapointe and Pilotte were finally asked to provide written testimony about what occurred.

A 106-day inquest into Villanueva's death began in 2009, but ground to a halt in February 2011 following multiple court challenges from the City of Montreal and the Montreal police union.

And based on the exhaustive report, Georges-Louis said the family will go ahead with a civil case against Lapointe and the Montreal Poilce Force, believing they now have proof the officer’s improper action and training led to the death of Villanueva.

The report includes 21 recommendations directed at Montreal's police department, Quebec's police school and the Ministry of Education.

The recommendations include:

  • The creation of new guidelines on the appropriate use of physical contact by police officers
  • Police training on how to interact with different ethnic groups
  • Training in the distinctions between social profiling, racial profiling, and criminal profiling
  • Teaching high school students how to interact with police officers, how to contest a fine or infraction, and the consequences of refusing to show ID

Montreal police satisfied with report

Montreal Police Chief Marc Parent said that, on the whole, the department is satisfied with the report into Villanueva's death.

He said the department has since trained 4,000 officers on racial profiling.

Speaking to reporters a few hours after the report was released, Parent said Montreal police had already made a number of changes regarding how they interact with the public since the 2008 shooting.

"I'm not saying there's not work to be done still, but there's been a lot of improvement," he said.

Parent said since the shooting police have taken steps to make sure that all officers involved in an incident involving the death or injury of a civilian are met within 48 hours by an outside force.