One of the officers involved has also been suspended for two days for mocking the Muslim man’s faith during the intervention.
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Five Montreal police officers have been sanctioned by Quebec’s police ethics committee for unnecessarily strip-searching a man they arrested for being intoxicated in public.
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One of the officers involved has also been suspended for two days without pay for mocking the Muslim man’s faith, telling another officer “there won’t be 12 virgins in heaven” for him.
The arrest in question dates back to January 2017. The man, referred to only as “Mr. D” in the recent ruling, had called police that night after an altercation at a fast-food restaurant.
When police arrived, officers found him inebriated in the middle of the street. They performed a pat-down search and handcuffed him, deciding to bring him to an operational centre for a few hours to allow him to sober up.
While driving him to the centre, police say he rambled incoherently, insulted them and referred to his religion. At one point, the officers say, the man threatened he would return to the centre with a bomb — all claims the man later denied during the proceedings.
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Once at the centre, a video recording captured one of the officers involved, Sheila Parker, speaking to a senior officer, Christian Houle, while he searched the man at a booking counter.
In the video, Parker is heard joking the man must be related to one of their colleagues who shares the same last name. She then relays what she claims he said about the bomb, before referencing his religion.
“Yeah, so for him, uh, what is it again? No, there won’t be 12 virgins in heaven,” she’s heard saying, before Houle stops her and says, “it’s 72 virgins.”
According to the ruling, at the mention of the word “virgins”, the man became irate, making the search difficult. It’s at that point Houle decided he should be placed in a cell and more thoroughly searched.
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In the cell, while he was still handcuffed, four officers held the man face down to the floor as another searched him.
When they removed the two pairs of pants he was wearing to search his pockets, they noticed he wasn’t wearing underwear underneath. They then removed all his clothes and searched them, except for a t-shirt. Only once left alone and locked in the cell was he given a pair of pants to put back on.
In her ruling, administrative judge Sylvie Séguin recalled that searches should only be performed if necessary and should be done in the least intrusive way possible . Officers should also re-evaluate what they’re doing every step of the way, she wrote, which they failed to do in this case.
Séguin also questioned why the officers even felt the need to search the man again in the cell: they had already searched him during his arrest and did so again at the booking counter.
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“The police officers were not faced with a risk of injury or imminent danger,” Séguin wrote. “On the contrary, Mr. D is disorganized, but he is not physically attacking anyone and he is handcuffed, therefore restricted in his movements.”
As for the comments about his religion, during the proceedings, it was argued Parker was simply repeating what the man said in the patrol car. Séguin rejected the argument.
“This reasoning is shocking,” she ruled. “A police officer must report what is necessary and must not seek to mock or ridicule a citizen.”
Séguin had found the officers at fault in May, but ruled on the sanctions they should receive last month.
On Oct. 19, the five officers who participated in the search — Houle, Parker, Valérie Hébert, Julie Chalin-Therrien and Dominic Côté — received a rebuke from the committee, one of the least severe of the six penalties it can impose.
Parker was also suspended for two days without pay for her comments about the man’s religion, while Houle received an additional rebuke for his.
Reached for comment on Thursday, the Montreal police department declined to comment on the ruling.
Five Montreal police officers sanctioned over 2017 strip search - Montreal Gazette
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