Latest news with #DPCP
CBC
20-05-2025
- CBC
Man charged with 1st-degree murder in 2022 Montréal-Nord shooting
A 20-year-old man has been charged with 1st-degree murder in connection with the 2022 fatal shooting of 26-year-old Jayson Colin in Montréal-Nord, according to Quebec's prosecution office. In an email, a spokesperson for the Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales (DPCP) says the man was a minor at the time of the incident and has been charged in youth court. The accused also faces a charge of attempted murder with a firearm. This comes after Montreal police arrested three men Friday. In a news release, the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) said it worked with provincial police, the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), to apprehend the suspects in a shooting that left one man dead and another, 25, injured. The shooting happened on Aug. 10, 2022. At around 10:25 p.m., two armed suspects reportedly opened fire on a group of men talking in a high school parking lot near P.-M.-Favier Avenue and Charny Street before fleeing, the release said. The 26-year-old man later died in hospital from his injuries, marking Montreal's 19th homicide of that year. The suspects arrested are 20, 23 and 24 years old. In the news release, police said the 20-year-old was a minor at the time of the shooting. The shooting rocked the community and left the victims' family searching for answers. At an August 2022 news conference, Colin's parents said he had dreams of founding his own community organization to make hockey more accessible for kids in the neighbourhood. The sport was a struggle for his family to afford while he was growing up, his mother, Ronide Casseus, said. "He was crazy about hockey, he could talk about it for hours, even if you didn't care," she said sitting alongside his stepfather, Roberson Berlus. The investigation into the homicide and attempted murder is ongoing, police say.
CBC
07-05-2025
- CBC
One person dead after police shooting in Kangiqsualujjuaq, Que.
One person is dead after a fatal police shooting in the Nunavik community of Kangiqsualujjuaq. Quebec's police watchdog, the bureau des enquêtes indépendantes (BEI), is investigating the incident. In a news release Wednesday morning, the BEI shared its preliminary findings. Around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday night, Nunavik police officers found a wanted person inside a tent and officers used pepper spray to force the person out. That person came out with a bladed weapon and police used a taser to subdue them. A police officer then opened fire, according to the BEI's statement. BEI writes that the individual was taken to a health centre, where they were pronounced dead. Five investigators are heading to the community and are expected to arrive Wednesday afternoon. BEI has body camera footage from the incident. Spokesperson Jérémie Comtois said the agency would analyze that footage for its final report which, once complete, will be submitted to Quebec's director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP). Given the sensitivity of these reports, Comtois said the BEI would not be disclosing anything further from the investigation to the public. "It is possible, subject to the prosecutor's agreement, that certain elements of the investigation will be available for consultation only to the relatives at the end of the process," he said. "Our investigations take on average approximately six months before we send our report to DPCP who will determine whether to bring charges against the police officers involved." The Nunavik Police Service (NPS) declined to comment. a man was killed during an altercation with NPS in the village of Salluit. Later that month, Nunavik's police chief pledged to implement every recommendation from the investigation into that shooting once those investigators' final reports are presented.
Hamilton Spectator
02-05-2025
- Hamilton Spectator
Pandemic investigation wraps up in Kanesatake
Following the conclusion of a years-long police investigation into allegations of financial misconduct against the Emergency Response Unit (ERU), which led Kanesatake's COVID-19 response, authorities are now deciding whether criminal charges will be filed. The Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) is the office tasked with making these determinations in Quebec. 'They will review the file and see if there is any basis for prosecution,' said Marc Tessier, spokesperson for the SQ. It could take several weeks before this process is completed, he added. There is no further information that can be publicly disclosed at this time, according to DPCP spokesperson Lucas Bastien. 'We now have all the information required to identify a potential criminal case,' he said, inviting The Eastern Door to follow up in the coming months. The politically charged investigation, conducted by the SQ financial crimes division, is being handed to the DPCP as the Mohawk Council of Kanesatake (MCK) prepares to hold elections on August 2, nearly four years after the file was first opened on August 23, 2021. The inquiry has hung over this Council term, with Victor Bonspille, who continues to claim the title of grand chief following his recent ouster by the MCK Ethics Commission, has often invoked the investigation at public meetings. 'Individuals in certain positions took advantage of our community at a crucial time and they took advantage of the situation with millions of dollars being handed to our community for the pandemic, to take care of us, and they pocket a large percentage of that. I think they undermined the community,' Bonspille told The Eastern Door following a forensic audit of the ERU in 2022, the contents of which incensed community members. That summary revealed compensation that many found lavish, with members that were paid an ERU base rate plus top-offs simultaneously with MCK or Kanesatake Health Center (KHC) wages. It also highlighted accounting pecularities in the 16-month span it covered, during which the ERU was responsible for managing $3.9 million. One member, incident commander and former vice-chief Patricia Meilleur, was paid nearly $600,000 in total over that time period. Former MCK grand chief Serge Otsi Simon, who was leading Council at the time of the ERU's work and is now a Council chief, has consistently defended the ERU, even signing his name to an open letter from members of the ad hoc body responding to the allegations outlined in the audit summary shortly after its release. 'After working with these guys throughout COVID and watching what they were going through, what they were working, how hard they worked, it's hard for me to believe anyone in there would have had criminal intent,' said Simon. He argued the ERU was effective in keeping COVID-19 rates low during the peak of the pandemic and that this is too often overlooked. 'People won't remember that. They won't remember the good that was done, and this is what disheartens me a lot,' he said. 'It's one thing to condemn somebody for ethical behaviour but to say it was criminal when the federal government knew about the funding, they approved the proposals, and yet there was something criminal of some sort? I really doubt it.' Bonspille alerted the community last Friday that he had been informed by the unit tasked with the investigation that a report had been handed to the DPCP. Simon confirmed that the Council was also given a heads up. Despite police revealing little about the progress of the investigation over the years since it was launched, it has occasionally made headlines, such as in May 2023 when police raided the band office and the KHC in search of records. While police would not confirm details of the investigation, KHC executive director Teiawenhniseráhte Tomlinson said at the time that the search warrant presented to the health centre specified that the SQ was investigating the possibility of fraud and breach of trust under the Criminal Code. Marie-Claude Bernard, the former finance head of the ERU, was recently reinstated as an employee of the MCK finance department after a labour tribunal ruling in her favour following a wrongful dismissal complaint. marcus@ Marcus Bankuti, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
