Montreal police say they deliberately chose not to move in quickly when a demonstration denouncing police brutality turned violent Wednesday night, in hopes of preventing further damage. Angry rioters smashed store windows, set vehicles ablaze, and tried to destroy police patrol cars in the late hours of Wednesday night, after what began as a peaceful protest turned angry. The event was meant to protest the shooting of Jean-Pierre Bony, who died of injuries from a police rubber bullet during a drug raid last month. It began quietly around 7 p.m., with about 200 protesters marching down the snowy streets of Montréal-Nord, a suburb north of St-Leonard in Montreal. But by 9 p.m., several people began setting fires in garbage cans, smashing the windows of local businesses and a bank, and breaking the windows of parked cars using crowbars and hammers. It’s not clear whether the vandals split off from the main group of protesters or whether they had any connection to the march at all. Montreal Police Cmdr. Ian Lafreniere says the protesters were mostly criminals, “not even people from Montreal North,” who arrived to try to “cause a commotion” with police. Police chose not to step in quickly so as not to spark a violent conflict and to limit damage and injuries, CTV Montreal’s Caroline Van Vlaardingen reported Thursday afternoon. “Police had to make a decision about whether to interact with these people. They knew they were being baited,” she said. After several hours, riot officers eventually moved in, forcing the looters to turn back north towards where the march began. The rioters threw rocks at the police station, and set several vehicles ablaze as they went. The fire department was eventually able to move in to extinguish those blazes but witnesses say many of the fires burned until midnight before being put out There have not been any arrests so far, but Lafreniere said police accumulated “a lot of pictures and videos” during the protests and are undertaking a full investigation. “So it’s not over,” he said. The protest had been organized by residents in Montreal North who are angry that Bony, a black man, was shot while trying to flee during a police drug raid. Bony died of his injuries. So far, police have not identified the officer who shot him. The rally brought up memories of Fredy Villanueva, who was killed by police in Montreal North in 2008 and who would have celebrated his 28th birthday on Wednesday. Villanueva’s family and friends gathered for the rally, saying they were angry that the officer who shot him was never brought to justice.
