Spvm dismantles Montréal-Nord night patrol team, relieves officers

The spvm dismantled a night patrol team in Montréal-Nord on Friday evening and relieved the officers of their duties until further notice. Leaders went to police station 39 around 9 p.m. after allegations that members of the team had engaged in repeated, coordinated racist behavior.

Station 39 and 21 h

About a dozen officers were affected by administrative measures, with some suspended, some assigned to administrative tasks without public contact, and others dispersed to different units elsewhere on the territory. Several also lost their service weapons and can no longer interact with the public.

The group belonged to the same work rotation and patrolled almost exclusively at night at station 39. The officers targeted were mostly young male agents with a few years of experience, and two sergeants were included.

March investigation

The internal affairs investigators opened the file in March. According to the investigation and denunciations from colleagues, some officers were suspected of unfairly targeting Black people and people of Arab origin, making insulting remarks tinged with racism, and cutting the hair of men they had apprehended and keeping it as trophies.

Colleagues at the station denounced the conduct because they judged it intolerable, and some asked to be reassigned for the same reason. The case appears to involve coordinated conduct rather than isolated individual lapses, with officers encouraging one another to commit the abuses.

Montréal-Nord patrol team

The operation removed the team from its duties in a borough described in the source material as highly multicultural. No one is accused of anything in the file for now, but the administrative response already split the group apart and cut off public contact for several of the officers.

That leaves the force with a team dismantled before any disciplinary or criminal outcome is set. For residents and people who were brought into contact with the unit, the immediate change is that the night patrol group no longer operates as it did on station 39's rotation.