Judge hears closing arguments in trial of Montreal cop accused of assaulting unhoused man

Montreal Gazette

25-04-2025

Montreal Crime
By
In May 2022, Montreal police officer Williams Bélanger was called to a downtown homeless shelter to respond to a fight between two men. While escorting one of them away, Bélanger suddenly pushed Johnny Inukpak Tukalak with two hands.
While Bélanger insists he didn't push him hard, security camera footage shows it was enough to send Tukalak backward against the sidewalk, fracturing his skull and knocking him unconscious.
After presiding over the trial at the Montreal courthouse, a Quebec Court judge must now decide whether Bélanger's actions that night amount to assault or if he used reasonable force as a police officer.
'You will have understood that I will not be handing down my decision today,' Judge Sacha Blais told Bélanger on Friday, after hearing closing arguments throughout the day. 'I will take it under deliberation.'
Bélanger, 28, has pleaded not guilty to one charge of assault causing bodily harm over the intervention and has been on administrative leave ever since. Tukalak, 35, died of a presumed overdose before the trial began.
The 14-second video showing the push in question has been at the heart of the trial, dissected at length by experts and used by both sides to argue their respective points.
The trial heard how the video only came to light after an employee at the shelter, bothered by a note in its logbook from that night, decided to look through security camera footage to understand what happened.
According to the shelter, police at the scene told employees that Tukalak had simply fallen and struck his head, not that he had been pushed during the intervention.
The video shows four police officers escorting an intoxicated Tukalak away from the shelter on a downward-sloping sidewalk, at times guiding him by the arm.
When Tukalak turns toward the officers, Bélanger walks up to him and pushes him in the chest. Tukalak falls backward and crashes against the sidewalk, his body going limp on impact.
Testifying in his defence during the trial, Bélanger acknowledged that he pushed Tukalak but said he only did so because he felt his own safety was at risk.
During closing arguments Friday, defence lawyer Ariane Bergeron St-Onge said that while there's no question the video is 'shocking,' it doesn't provide enough context to judge the police intervention.
'The video has its limits,' Bergeron St-Onge said. 'It's only 15 seconds, it's in black and white, there is no sound, and we can't see the movements very well or the force and speed applied.'
Bergeron St-Onge argued Bélanger used reasonable force in accordance with a section of the Criminal Code that governs police conduct, in addition to acting out of legitimate self-defence.
Furthermore, Bergeron St-Onge warned against 'Monday morning quarterbacking' the police intervention or judging Bélanger's action with the benefit of hindsight.
She stressed he was reacting in real time to what he perceived to be a threat and that the push happened in a 'fraction of a second.'
'Patrolling in the field, in the heat of the action, is a difficult and dangerous job these days, especially in a big city like Montreal,' Bergeron St-Onge said, arguing police officers have limited tools to intervene with vulnerable populations.
'Officer Bélanger's use of force was reasonable and justified,' she added.
The Crown, for its part, argued Bélanger did not need to resort to pushing Tukalak and that his defence is directly contradicted by the video evidence.
Crown prosecutor Lili Prévost-Gravel recalled that during Bélanger's testimony, he admitted to taking 21 steps toward the victim before pushing him.
Prévost-Gravel argued that Bélanger was not acting out of self-defence but rather out of 'exasperation and a loss of patience.'
She said the police intervention was under control up until that point, noting the video shows Tukalak mostly following instructions to leave the shelter.
Prévost-Gravel agreed with the defence describing the video as shocking, and said that's why the employee at the shelter flagged it to authorities in the first place.
'He couldn't explain the use of such force by a police officer towards someone who had done nothing wrong,' Prévost-Gravel said.
Last, she reminded the judge that Tukalak was neither armed nor aggressive, and that given his smaller stature — he weighed only 120 pounds and stood 5-foot-2 — he presented little threat to the four police officers at the scene.
'I understand that police work is difficult on the streets of Montreal,' Prévost-Gravel said, 'but we can't accept that a gratuitous, violent and impulsive reaction justifies the assault you have before you.'
Bélanger is charged under a section of the Criminal Code punishable by summary conviction, which carries a less severe sentence.
The case is one of the rare instances in which a Montreal police officer has been charged following an investigation by Quebec's police oversight agency, the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes.
It was handled by the bureau under its mandate to investigate any criminal allegations against a police officer in which the complainant is Indigenous.
Blais will deliver his decision in July.