POLICE ETHICS HEARING INTO CASE OF BLACK LASALLE TEACHER BEING VIOLENTLY ARRESTED

Montreal, May 23, 2012 --- The case of the Black Lasalle teacher who was violently dragged out of his friend’s car while waiting for a take-out order, arrested and fined will be heard by the Police Ethics Committee this Wednesday, May 23, 2012, from 9:30 am, at 500 René-Lévesque West, Montreal.

The hearing is open to the public and may run till May 25.

On April 9, 2010, Mr. Farid Charles was waiting as a passenger in his friend’s car while his friend went to order food in a Caribbean take-out restaurant in a shopping center in Lasalle, a South West district of Montreal. A white police officer suddenly opened the driver’s side door and ask for Mr. Charles driver’s license and car papers (although under the Highway Safety Code, passengers are not required to identify themselves in a routine car check). When Mr. Charles told the officer that he had no right to open the door, the officer told him that he could do whatever he wanted. The officer insisted that Mr. Charles show his ID, without telling him why; he only told Mr. Charles to sit still and be quiet, due to break-ins in the area. The officer eventually grabbed and violently pulled Mr. Charles out of the car, assaulted, arrested and charged him with the penal offense of “wandering without justification.”

At this appearance in Municipal Court in January 2012, Mr. Charles was informed by the city prosecutor that the fine was withdrawn due to the fact that the shopping center where the car was parked does not belong to the city and therefore, a city by-law (which led to the fine) cannot be applied in his case.

Believing to be the target of racial profiling, illegal detention and arrest, and excessive use of force, Mr. Charles called upon CRARR to file a civil rights complaint on his behalf against the two officers and their employer, the City of Montreal, and a police misconduct complaint against the two officers.

Last summer, the Police Ethics Commissioner upheld his complaint of police misconduct and cites the two officers for breaches of the Code of Ethics of Police Officers before the Police Ethics Committee, which will begin hearing the case today.