A Montreal man who was fined $48 for walking on a quiet street instead of an ice-covered sidewalk plans to fight the ticket.
Lateef Martin said he was ticketed early Saturday morning shortly after he left a friend’s house.
“She had actually just showed me her bruise from her falling on the ice earlier that day,” he told CTVNews.ca Wednesday.
“Clearly I didn’t want to have the same fate, so I walked on the street.”
The temperature was below freezing at the time. Martin said the sidewalks were largely coated in ice, much of which was hidden by a fresh layer of snow.
Martin said he had the hood on his jacket up and was on his phone, but was watching out for approaching vehicles. He said the first vehicle he encountered was a police car. The officer inside asked him if everything was OK, he responded that it was and the officer asked him where he was going.
“I said ‘It’s none of your business where I’m going,’ and that’s where I really feel that I was targeted,” Martin said.
At that point, Martin said, the officer’s demeanour changed and Martin was issued a $48 ticket for violating Quebec’s highway safety laws. He describes it as a case of being stopped for walking while black.
“I shouldn’t have to worry about being polite and getting a ticket if I’m not,” he said.
Martin started arguing with the officer. He posted a video showing part of his encounter to Facebook, and messaged his friend to tell her what was going on. As she came outside to see it for herself, she slipped on the ice for the second time that day, he said.
The video shows Martin raising his voice and yelling at the officer, who either responds calmly or does not respond at all. Martin says he doesn’t regret what he said, but does wish he had adopted a different tone and done more to de-escalate the situation.
“I was upset. I have two nephews, and I told them ‘Hey, guys, don’t ever talk to the police like this,’” he said.
Martin has received a significant amount of support online, with people expressing surprise that Quebec bans walking on streets when sidewalks are available. He plans to fight his ticket.
“I’m hoping people will hold the police accountable for their behaviour. This is a gross use of their authority,” he said.
Montreal’s SPVM police agency told CTV Montreal that it could not comment on details of a specific case.
Enforcement of the stay-off-the-street rule does make headlines from time to time. A man was fined $48 last spring for pushing his daughter’s stroller down a residential street in the Montreal suburb of Cote-Su-Luc, Que.
