An officer from the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) accused with a colleague of having kidnapped, threatened and beaten a homeless man in 2010 denied on the whole line Friday having committed such crimes.
“I did not threaten Mr. Levasseur with a gun, I did not write in his face, I did not insult him, I did not put a bag over his head, I am not went to neighborhood station 20. All the allegations of a criminal nature, I did not make them, “said Patrick Guay, who testified for his defense Friday at the Montreal courthouse.
Officer Guay and his co-accused, Officer Pierre-Luc Furlotte, are facing very serious criminal charges. The complainant, Tobie-Charles Angers-Levasseur, a homeless man from downtown Montreal, maintains that the two SPVM police officers threatened him with a firearm, among other things, on the evening of March 31, 2010.
Tobie-Charles Angers-Levasseur testified, last November, to having been arrested by the two defendants, after having thrown on the sidewalk a decorative shrub on the edge of the sidewalk, in downtown Montreal. The complainant alleges that he was handcuffed and then insulted by the two police officers who allegedly incited him to jump “off a bridge”. “You would be doing everyone a favor. »
The plaintiff’s evening of horror would then have continued. According to his story, the two officers covered his face with a garbage bag, in addition to spraying him with Windex. “A trash bag will do for a trash can like you,” one of the officers allegedly told him.
The defendants would have finally taken him to Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, on the edge of Highway 40. Before being released, the complainant would have heard the sound of a gun, then a “pressure” behind the head. The two police officers then suggested that he help him commit suicide, since he was not capable of it, he said.
In his defense, Patrick Guay painted a very different portrait of this evening. When he arrived on the scene, his supervisor entrusted him with the complainant, who was already handcuffed. He describes him as being “agitated, aggressive and intoxicated” in the patrol vehicle.
When he learned that Mr. Levasseur would not be charged with wrongdoing, why didn’t he release him on the spot? “I remind you that we still have uncertainty about the possibility of reoffending,” explained Patrick Guay.
According to the accused, it was the plaintiff who suggested that they drive him to a friend’s house in the West Island during a three-way “chat” in the patrol vehicle.
“When a person is not free to move, he is detained at that time? “, asked the Crown prosecutor Me Vincent Huet, in cross-examination.
“I find that detention is a concept that is very legal. I am a police officer. I have a good knowledge of the legal. But if we go down to the second: when was he detained, when was he not detained? From the moment Monsieur says to me, “it’s beautiful, guys, take me to the West Island”. According to my interpretation as a police officer, he is no longer detained, but remains handcuffed for the reasons listed earlier. […] He becomes willing to go to a place. He does not remain free to move, but it is for everyone’s safety, “said Patrick Guay, represented by Me Michel Massicotte.
