Things took a turn for the worse for retired RCMP officer Maurice Carvery on the evening of July 24, after he says Longueuil police allegedly accosted him in a common outdoor smoking area of the Houston Bar & Grill in what he and racial justice group The Red Coalition – are calling police misconduct and racial profiling.
“I was targeted by a police officer and I can say that with the utmost of confidence because, just by the manner and in the way he walked in my direction he was ultra focused on me both visually and within his line of sight,” said Carvery.
“Their only intention was to escalate and I can articulate that very well by the manner in which they antagonized.”
Alain Babineau, the racial profiling and public safety director for the Red Coalition, said, “One of the officers approached him and asked for identification without cause. No reason. So Mr. Carvery said you know knowing his rights as police officers said well no have to provide you know my information and there was a debate between them and all of a sudden he’s surrounded by seven or ten police officers.”
According to Carvery, a heavy police response ensued; he then describes seeing a female officer pointing a taser in his direction, despite his many attempts at de-escalation.
“They literally grabbed me and I was overwhelmed by six officers and I immediately began saying, I’m not resisting. I am not resisting. And despite the fact that I was not resisting and I was saying, I’m not resisting, they put my hands behind my back and they threw me on the ground and they continued with their physical assault upon me,” Carvey explained.
Jerell Smith, another retired RCMP officer who witnessed the incident, said, “They said he was arrested for obstruction of justice for not complying with the municipal smoking bylaw,” which according to the Red Coalition and witnesses on scene, wasn’t mentioned by officers until nearly 30 minutes after the initial approach, with officers threatening to give Carvery a ticket for smoking within nine metres of the restaurant’s entrance.
“She continued to say, you know, if you would have just complied with us in the first place, he wouldn’t be getting a ticket,” added Smith
A scheme, both Carvery and Smith believe the Longueuil Police drummed up after realizing they had no cause to ask for identification.
In addition to alleging police misconduct, Carvery says evidence tampering took place after he witnessed the arresting officer erase parts of the footage of the arrest from his phone.
“I had seen him on my phone. Once I got my phone back and I reviewed my video, it did not coincide with the time I began taping or I recorded the whole incident. It was altered 100 per cent,” explained Carvery.
It’s for those two main reasons that he and the Red Coalition, who currently represents his case, are filing formal complaints with Quebec’s police ethics commissioner and the human rights commission.
The complaint is also directed at Spectre, the renamed successor to SPAL’s former Brigade d’intervention multidisciplinaire (BIM), who the Red Coalition believes the officers who approached Carvery were connected to.
“Spectre in Longueuil is basically targeting blacks and racialized people under the guise of looking for gangsters and so that’s problematic and we want the minister to investigate,” said Babineau.
Smith added: “One of the main things that kind of bothered me is that, yeah, his charter rights were violated,” referring to section 10 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which refers to everyone’s right on arrest or detention, to be informed of the reasons for their arrest and to retain and instruct counsel without delay.
“The arresting officer should have come over, read him his rights,” he added, attesting to never witnessing this act being undertaken by any of the officers present during Carvery’s detainment.
But for the Carvery, the crux of the problem doesn’t lie solely with the fact that officers neglected to inform him of his rights, it also lies with the fact that they made no effort to de-escalate the situation — rather he feels they were trying to provoke him into faltering into an emotional response.
“There was a collective frustration when not only did that not happen, but when I continued to try and de-escalate,” described Carvery, who even referred to the group of officers as a wolfpack, hellbent on making the situation worse.
For their part, Longueuil Police answered CityNews’ request for comment with a written statement, saying: “The SPAL takes seriously any concerns raised regarding police actions by its members. The investigations we conducted allowed us to examine the situation brought to our attention. […] Due to potential upcoming legal proceedings, no further details can be provided.”
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