Quebec's police ethics board says two Montreal police officers lied to investigators looking into the in-custody death of a 23-year-old man. A Montreal Police badge is shown during a news conference in Montreal, Monday, Oct. 7, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
MONTREAL – Quebec’s police ethics board says two Montreal officers lied to investigators about the 2017 death of a 23-year-old man in custody.
Administrative judge Benoit Mc Mahon says Const. Mathieu Paré and Dominic Gagné – since promoted to detective-sergeant – were negligent or showed a lack of concern for the man’s well-being when they wrote on an intake form that he did not suffer from any medical conditions or take medication.
David Tshiteya Kalubi died Nov. 8, 2017, in a holding cell at the Montreal municipal court, hours after he told Gagné during the intake process that he suffered from anemia and took medication for it.
That interaction betweenKalubi and Gagné was caught on video and contradicted the officers’ written reports and oral statements to investigators from Quebec’s police watchdog – Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes.
The two officers had attempted to have their written accounts and oral statements excluded from evidence before the ethics board, but that request was denied.
In 2019, Quebec prosecutors decided that the actions of the two officers did not constitute criminal negligence and that Kalubi’s inability to access his anemia medication was unrelated to the heart condition that killed him.
Sanctions against the two officers will be decided by the ethics board at a later date.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 7, 2023.
