by PATRICK LEJTENYI
The past year and a half has been difficult for Montreal North’s Villanueva family. In August 2008, 18-year-old Fredy Villanueva was shot to death by a Montreal police officer. A subsequent police inquiry into the shooting was marred by controversy and resulted in a total exoneration of the two police officers involved. A separate coroner’s inquiry is now underway. But one of the witnesses central to the inquiry—Fredy’s older brother, Dany Villanueva—is now in danger of being deported to his native Honduras, which he left as a 12-year-old in 1998.
Dany Villanueva, it’s safe to say, is no angel. In 2006, he was arrested for armed robbery and served 11 months in jail. In April 2008, he was arested again on wewapons and robbery charges. He is due in court sometime this spring.
On the night of Aug. 9, 2008, he was playing an illegal game of dice in Montreal North’s Henri-Bourassa park when two officers, Jean-Loup Lapointe and Stéphanie Pilotte, moved in to break it up. A scuffle between Lapointe and Dany Villanueva ensued. Lapointe told the coroner’s inquiry two weeks ago that, fearing Villanueva might get a hold of his service firearm and the threatening movements of his companions, he fired four shots, killing Fredy Villanueva and injuring two others.
Villanueva is scheduled to speak before the inquiry on March 11. That’s the same day that he is supposed to appear before board that will determine whether his permanent residence status will be revoked, leaving him vulnerable to deportation to a country he left half a lifetime ago.
According to Will Prosper, who founded the community group Montréal-Nord Républik after the shooting, the threat of deportation is another, “nonsensical” blow to a family that has already experienced its share of tragedy. “I spoke to Dany’s mother, and she is devastated,” he says. “She told me she had already lost one son, she cannot lose another…. She lost one son to the police, and now she may lose another to the judiciary. She’s very upset. She can’t understand why they are doing this to someone who came to this country.”
In Prosper’s mind, Dany Villanueva’s past arrest and his current immigration difficulties can’t help but be related. “They are definitely linked,” he says. If Villanueva was such a menace to Canadian society that he had to be deported, “Why didn’t they do it two, three, four years ago?”
Canada isn’t alone in deporting foreign-born criminals. But Prosper sees something nefarious in which immigrants Canada accepts, and what happens to them once they get here. “We tell the world we want people with diplomas, but when they get here, very often their credentials aren’t recognized by professional orders,” he says. “We are taking people with brains from countries that need those brains, and we’re sending them criminals”—criminals, he notes, who learned their trade in Canada.
Villanueva, meanwhile, is not doing so well, Prosper notes. He suspects the 24-year-old is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder but has little recourse to professional counselling services. His Latino heritage frowns on signs of male weakness, so “he is keeping everything bottled up inside, and all the media attention has made it difficult for him to get a job. It’s very hard for him to live his life.”
MONTRÉAL-NORD RÉPUBLIK,
THE COALITION AGAINST POLICE
REPRESSION AND ABUSE, NO ONE IS
ILLEGAL AND SOLIDARITY ACROSS
BORDERS URGE SUPPORTERS TO
WRITE TO ELECTED OFFICIALS AND TO
ATTEND THE CORONER’S INQUEST FROM
MARCH 9–12 AT THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE
(NOTRE-DAME AND ST-LAURENT) |
