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Info Bavures is a diary of MUC police brutality by JACQUIE CHARLTON In 1993, French police arrested a young Algerian man who later died in custody. Then-Minister of the Interior Charles Pasqua was asked for his comments on the action and called it a "bavure," which in the language of French administrators is "an unfortunate mistake." This summer Info Bavures, a four-page photocopied bulletin, appeared on Montreal streets documenting witnessed "bavures" of various Montreal police officers, with detailed and strikingly dispassionate descriptions of beatings, harassment, insults and threats against citizens, where they happened and when. When recorded, the names and badge numbers of officers are included, as well as advice on what to do when confronted by police and a phone number to call for victims and witnesses. The bulletin, whose fourth edition is expected this month, prints 1,000 to 1,500 copies and is distributed free by volunteers. The Mirror faxed the two latest copies of Info Bavures to Michel Gagnon, assistant director of the communications division at MUC Police headquarters, with a list of the names of every officer mentioned and a request for their responses. A near-apoplectic Gagnon phoned back almost immediately, saying Info Bavures had "made him fall off his chair." "When I read that I asked myself, what have we come to? My god, I had no idea such things happened!" What Gagnon was concerned about, however, was not the alleged breaches of police ethics described in Info Bavures. It was the fact that any such bulletin existed. The next day, in a calmer frame of mind, he explained what had angered him: "These people have the opportunity to bring this to the ethics commission's attention. Let them do it! If these allegations are founded, they will not be tolerated. We are always against racism, rudeness and intolerance. We're not hiding, we're not covering our asses. It's a witch hunt, really." But Gagnon's faith in processes like the police ethics commission are not shared by the publishers of Info Bavures. Dee LeComte, one of the bulletin's volunteers, says that when complaints are brought to the ethics commission, "nothing happens. It's very seldom that anyone ever gets anywhere if they make a complaint, especially if they happen to be street youth." Certainly, the appearance of a bulletin like Info Bavures points to some grave concerns about the behaviour of Montreal police. As a grim footnote to these concerns, the Mirror last week received two reports from people who had experienced or witnessed what they felt were acts of arbitrary police behaviour and brutality. One report was from a woman who had hailed a cab late one night and was stopped, questioned and handcuffed by a passing police officer who was alone in his squad car. He brought her to a police station, where she begged police to tell her what she had done wrong. She was released ninety minutes later, after being issued two tickets for "soliciting transport on the street"--hitchhiking--and "emitting an audible sound outside"--when she yelled for help while being handcuffed. The other report was from a man who had witnessed a seemingly drunk clubgoer call some surrounding police officers "pigs" and was then kicked in the testicles, thrown to the ground, pepper-sprayed while restrained and beaten until a two-foot-diameter pool of blood had formed around his head. Further details were unavailable at press time. Info Bavures can be reached at 525-5273. |
Unfortunate mistakes galore