Warning: Graphic content MONTREAL- Quebec’s newly appointed Domestic Security Minister Guy Jr. Lapointe, a former police officer, has triggered new investigations into allegations of a Montreal police officer urinating on a homeless person. Advocates welcome the move but want more action to protect vulnerable people. Alex Berthelot, an administrator with “Le RAPSIM”, an organization defending the rights of homeless Montrealers, said independent inquiries are the bare minimum of what needs to be done. “I think we are really in a kind of extreme situation,” said Berthelot. “For me, the litmus test is going to be when and if we see that police officer arraigned in front of a court of justice, because urinating on somebody else is a criminal offence.” Montreal daily newspaper La Presse reported earlier this month that over the span of a year, an officer had allegedly filmed himself humiliating homeless people, and that on at least one occasion, he had urinated on a person sleeping on the streets. The officer was on patrol in District 21, a downtown area with a significant homeless population. An internal investigation was triggered and the officer was suspended with pay. Lapointe said the newly announced investigations by the province’s police watchdog, known as the BEI, and the ethics commissioner were neither a vote of non-confidence in the SPVM (Montreal police), nor a way to question the quality of the force’s investigation. “It’s clear to me that in this case, the investigation must be conducted by an external entity to preserve public confidence,” Lapointe said in a statement. Newly elected Quebec Liberal Member of the National Assembly James Hughes welcomed the new inquiries. Before he became a member of the Opposition, Hughes was the president-director general of the Old Brewery Mission, a non-profit dedicated to supporting adults experiencing, or at risk of experiencing homelessness in Montreal. He has been involved in the fight to end homelessness for decades. “Our hearts got out to this gentleman who was abused in this way, treated in such an inhumane fashion,” Hughes said in an interview with CTV News. “It just boggles the mind to think that anyone could do this, let alone a police officer.” Hughes said he is particularly concerned because he had noted improvement in the last decade in the way police officers from downtown Montreal police station interact with the homeless population. “They need to be treated with humanity and dignity and thoughtfulness at all times,” said Hughes. “As a general rule, the people have been so much better than we have seen in the past. There are obvious exceptions from time to time, but when you hear a story like this, it just makes you stop and go ‘how much progress have we really made?’” He considered this an exceptional case that needs to be treated in an exceptional way. “It’s got civil dimensions, potentially criminal dimensions to it,” said Hughes. “So, I think it’s quite right that it be analyzed by independent parties the way the minister has indicated.” He hopes all parties in Quebec, at all levels of government, can lock arms and find solutions. But some advocates say the allegations against police are evidence that a fundamental change in public discourse is desperately needed. Berthelot said there has been a dehumanization of homeless people over the last five or six years. “We are seeing them as a nuisance to public order instead of people who need help and people who are living through difficult situations. This has led us to where we are now.” Quebec’s new government plans to hold a summit on homelessness next year and has promised to cut the number of people experiencing homelessness in half by 2030.
