Remembering
Fredy twice

Two competing events mark the anniversary
of the Villanueva shooting

COMING UP AND OUT: Hoodstock poster

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

What’s a community-minded person in Montreal North to do this Sunday? Marking the first anniversary of the death of unarmed 18-year-old Fredy Villanueva at the hands of police, two events will be taking place in the economically challenged, ethnically diverse neighbourhood this weekend.

The bigger one is Hoodstock, organized by the relatively new group Montréal-Nord Républik, founded by radio host Will Prosper. Hoodstock will feature two days of conferences, workshops and concerts ending Sunday, Aug. 9 with a march and vigil to commemorate Villanueva at 5 p.m.

The second is a vigil at 3:30 p.m., also on Sunday, also in Montreal North. This one was organized by local religious leaders, and recently got the support of the Coalition montréalaise de la non-violence, who organize the annual Week of Non-Violence in late September and early October. And while both organizations say they respect the other and have cordial relations, representatives from both say they are confused by the other’s actions.

Prosper says he and his group have been working on Hoodstock for months, and reached out to other groups for their participation. But the announcement last week of another vigil caught them by surprise.

“It felt weird, because we do get along, we asked them to participate,” says Prosper. “We were surprised they would do this without talking about it first.”

But to the Coalition’s founder and president Gethro Auguste, two separate events should not be problematic. While Auguste says he deplores the events that resulted in Villanueva’s death, he says an equal if not greater problem is the issue of youth on youth crime.

“Our vigil is in the memory of all victims of violence, especially those who are innocent who have been killed and those who live with the effects violence has had on their lives, people who have lost children or brothers or sisters or friends. We want to say we refuse to legitimize violence in our society.”

He says Hoodstock is not exactly representative of the feelings of the borough’s established religious leaders.

But to Prosper, that is the point. Hoodstock, he says, is about emerging young community leaders, something that may cause the older guard some discomfort.

“We are trying to bring a new generation of leaders up,” he says. “This is contrary to the Coalition, who sometimes feel they have to blame the youth, which is okay, there is all sorts of violence, but they want to [concentrate] on the idea of forgiveness,” especially regarding the officer who shot Villanueva. “But it’s difficult to forgive a person without a public inquiry.”

But Auguste says he has just as much right as anyone else to mark the anniversary in his own way. “No one has exclusivity over this weekend,” he says. “A part of the population wants to express themselves, not only about what happened to Fredy but also about all the youth who have been killed by other youth, about seeing young people running riot, which is very much a shame. It touches us profoundly. We want to denounce this plague of young people killing each other. We want our children to die of old age, not of a bullet in the head.”

Apparent tensions notwithstanding, Prosper says the point of the weekend is to focus on the positive and people power. “I hope it’s going to bring the community together,” he says. “It’s something that’s been organized by the people, of the people and for the people. If all it does is get one person to change, to become more involved, then Hoodstock will have been a success.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON HOODSTOCK,
SEE HOODSTOCK.CA.
THE COALITION’S VIGIL TAKES PLACE
SUNDAY, AUG. 9 AT THE MAISON
CULTURELLE ET COMMUNAUTAIRE DE
MONTRÉAL-NORD (12004 ROLLAND)