Front Burner - Fear, frustration after police shoot Black man in Repentigny, Que.

Episode Date: August 18, 2021

In the wake of the fatal police shooting of Jean René Junior Olivier, CBC Montreal reporter Antoni Nerestant offers a closer look at the strained relations between police and Black residents in Repentigny, Que.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. I'm Alameen Abdul-Mahmoud, in for Jamie Poisson. Instead of helping me, we killed my son. We killed him. We killed him. We killed him.

We killed him. We killed him. I called 911 for them to help me. And instead of helping me, they killed my son. That's the mother of Jean-René Junia Olivier at a rally at Repentigny City Hall earlier this month. On August 1st, local police shot her 37-year-old son in the midst of a mental health crisis. Repentigny is a suburb just east of Montreal,

where relations between police and Black residents have been strained for years. If we come to Repentigny, do you feel that we're safe? Do you feel that we have to hide? Our skin color speaks for us. It does speak for us. These cops are supposed to protect us. They didn't do that.

They did not do that. They killed them. And now we have to bury our mother's son. Look at this woman. Today, CBC Montreal reporter and recent guest host of this show, Antony Neristan, returns with more on the story and how it spurred a wider conversation about racism and belonging in Rippantini. Antony, I was hoping you could start by telling us what we know so far about what happened to Jean-René Juvia Olivier.

So what we know is that on the morning of August 1st, Jean-René Juvia Olivier, a 37-year-old black man, was going through some kind of mental health troubles at home. And he was around family and loved ones. He was in some kind of distress, and he also had a knife. And this led to a 911 call. According to the police version of events, when officers got there, Olivier was outside the home with the knife. And at some point, according to police, Olivier started running away from the officers

and they weren't able to neutralize him. And then they felt as though he was threatening and a danger to those around him, including the officers. And at some point, shots were fired and Olivier was killed. And as a result, the case is being investigated by Quebec's police watchdog. It's called the Bureau of Independent Investigations. You say this happened near his family. What do they say happened? You know, it's interesting you say that because the mother of Olivier, she had a lot to say.

And that in itself is a pretty big deal because a lot of what I just told you, as far as what happened, it comes from the police's version of events. And in many of these cases, when you have police shootings, that's all you really hear. The BEI, the Bureau of Independent Investigations, it takes over the case.

They put out a statement saying, here's what police say happened, and we're going to investigate to see if this is true. And then you don't hear much of anything else for months, maybe even years after that. But the mother spoke out and she gave a different version of what happened. The one thing the police and the mother had in common in terms of what they say took place is the fact that Olivier was in distress. She said her son was seeing things, seeing people around him and that he felt he was being threatened.

And that's why he had a knife in his hand. And she says she called 911 because she was afraid he would hurt himself. But she also said that her son at one point dropped a knife and he did not have the knife in his hands just before being shot. So not only did she dispute the police's version of events of what happened, she also said without hesitation that her son died because of the anti-black racism that exists within Repentigny's police force and that if he were white, the 911 call that she placed would not have ended in the fatal shooting. She also said 9-1-1 is not for black people and that if she has an emergency from now on, she'd rather die than call police.

So really strong words. She was angry from her standpoint. It's like she called police to come to help her son, and they showed up and killed him instead. She wasn't the only one who spoke to the media. Other family members spoke out, and they all had choice words for police in Repentigny. Instead of getting help, he got three bullets. As a mother myself, I have three kids. I feel that we are not safe. And repentinny, we are like black people are very, very, very, very put aside.

Every day we have to deal with the racism. And I feel that I'm not safe anymore. Now, in terms of the police, you talked a little bit about how most of what we know comes from them so far. What have the police said about her comments so far? So the same day that the family spoke to the media, Reponsiviste Police Chief Hélène Zion, she had a news conference of her own. It was brief. She offered her condolences and promised to speak with the family in person and offer her support.

She also said the force was looking for ways to build bridges with the black community in Repentigny. And when she was asked if Repentigny had a racism or racial profiling problem, she said basically that racial discrimination is present in all aspects of society. So she acknowledged it, but also it looked like she was trying to frame it in a way where it didn't look like a Hapansini specific type of police problem. Now, I want to talk a little bit more about the community in where all this has happened, because there are a lot of us who might not be familiar with Rippantini. Can you give us a little bit more detail about the community? Yeah, so the climate that you see in Rippantini right now, it almost feels like it's been 25 years in the making. And the reason why I say that, like Repensigny is this really nice, quiet suburb located just east of Montreal. Like I live in the east end of the city and Repensigny is literally like a 15 minute drive away from where I am right now.

So it's right next to Montreal, but it's very different. Historically, it's almost an exclusively white city. And now, Repensigny is still mostly white, but it's changed a lot in the last 20 years. The real estate market is a big reason for that. It hasn't been very kind on the island of Montreal. So people from different communities, they've made that leap. Let's leave Montreal and let's go to a nice, quiet town like Repensigny. We can have a real nice big home

with a nice lawn, huge driveway for a price that you can never find on the island. And Quebec's Haitian community has really spearheaded the diversity that we see in Repensigny right now. After white French-speaking Quebecers, Haitians are essentially the second largest cultural group in the city. There were 500 black people in 2001 in Repensigny. Now that number is closer to 6,000. And maybe it's even

more once we see the new census data when they come out. So it's an area that's, like you said, a 15-minute drive away from you. You've watched this area become more and more diverse over a lot of the years. I understand that for a lot of people that you spoke to, they say they still don't feel welcome there. What did they tell you? So one of the people I spoke to,

his name is Pierre-Richard Thomas. He's been in Repentigny for six years. He runs a nonprofit group called La Caille Média. And that group has been very outspoken about the racial profiling they feel is rampant in the city. And the way he put it to me was, they don't want to see us. That's what he told me.

They don't want to see us. It's as if they think we're invading them. And by they, he meant many of the white residents there, including police officers. And there's just this sense within the black community in Repensigny that the white residents feel like the city changed for the worse when they showed up. Pierre Richard Thomas, I believe he's in his late 30s, early 40s. I spoke to a 21-year-old just to kind of get a sense of what different people, different ages say. A 21-year-old, his name is Isaiah Carmichael Guillaume. He's lived in Repensigny's entire life, and he told me he doesn't feel like Repensigny is his town.

Do you have a sense of belonging here? Like, this is my city, this is my town. No, not at all. Not serious i'm i'm i'm dead serious um i've always told myself if i if i were to move out i'd go in montreal where there's a lot more people there's a lot more black people it's more common i guess um but yes, I grew up here, but it's not my town. I don't feel like I have a place here. And unfortunately, there's a lot of people that keep reminding us that. You just get the sense that Huponsini is just a place where they sleep, but there's just not much of an attachment there for a lot of the people in the Black community because they just don't feel like they're trusted there or appreciated there or welcome.

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So let's come back then to the role of police in this. So how would you say that the local Repentigny police force have factored into fostering that feeling? It's played a huge role. We've spoken, I say we, the CBC has spoken to a lot of people over the last few years in Repentigny. But I also have friends in their early 30s that I went to high school with, and they moved to Repentigny in the early 2000s. And the experiences they shared with me weren't great. One of my friends told me that he went to a bar once in Repentigny. He's heading home, it's late at night. And he told me that he was pulled over three once in Repentigny. He's heading home. It's late at night. And he told me that he was pulled over three times

before he got home. It's like a 15-minute drive. And it's not just the younger people that are saying this. Good morning. My name is Serge Desmode. I'm living in Repentigny. One of the people I interviewed last week, his name is Serge Daman.

He's retired. He moved to Repentigny in 2002. So when I went there, you know, they're looking for a place, a quiet place to live because, you know, I was a retired man. And, you know, I get a very big, big, big hope for the city. When I went there, you know, I am really disappointed. He was looking for peace and quiet, wanted to get away from Montreal. He has this beautiful home, but he says he's been disappointed with his experience there, basically because of run-ins

with police, not just him, but his children as well. He told me a story, one of his sons who worked at a car dealership, so it's normal for him to have a different car every other day of the week, and he says one week his son was pulled over seven times. So interactions with Repentigny police have really played a big role in this feeling of being unwanted and being watched and also being profiled. Nothing really changed. For us, for us, nothing really changed. For the black community, nothing changed.

Because we always victimized by this situation, by the cops. Now these stories, they've ended up translating to more formal complaints. I understand that there's nine formal racial profiling complaints that have been filed against the Repentigny police since 2017. And the Quebec Human Rights Commission have already ruled against the police force in four of those complaints? Yeah, four of them. And the most recent one, El-Amin, came last month. It was related to an incident that happened in 2017. This was a black man in Repensigny who was sitting in a parked car with his children,

and he was blowing balloons. And he was approached by officers. They asked for his ID. I'm on the passenger side. There's a machine here that inflates my inflatable balloons. Okay? On the passenger side. Sir.

On the passenger side. Don't touch me. Don't touch me. Don't touch me. Don't touch me. Don't touch me. The man in question says he didn't comply because he's thinking, I'm in the parked car. Why are you asking me these questions?

There was this argument. It escalated. And eventually, he's handcuffed and ticketed. And the Quebec Human Rights Commission did rule that that was a case of racial profiling. And this was this is an incident that was caught on video. And there are plenty of stories like this where black people just feel like they're targeted in the Repentigny. And what's interesting also is the fact, when I spoke to Pierre-Richard Thomas from La Caille Média, he's saying these things have been happening for years, maybe even decades. But just as the Haitian community has grown, as the black population has grown in Repensigny, people get together and they start to realize, oh, what happened to me was not an isolated incident. So it happened to you, it happened to someone else. So he tells me that as the population has grown, so is like their willingness to get together and speak out and denounce racial profiling.

So this is the backdrop, this is the background we're working against and where the story's set. But given this context, can you tell me a little bit about what you've heard in terms of the community's reaction to the shooting of Jean-René Junier-Olivier? There's obviously anger and frustration, but there's also fear and sadness. And the reason why I say that is because people have been complaining about racial profiling in Rwansani for years. And from what Rwansani police have told us, this is the first fatal shooting in the city's history. And all this time that people have been expressing their concerns about what was going on, this was the end result that was most feared. the end result that was most feared, that a black person would have an altercation with police and he would be killed in a manner that was deemed unnecessary by a lot of people. So, you know, if I bring up Isaiah again, the 21-year-old I spoke to, he was already afraid before the shooting that he could be in danger. His friends were afraid. He told me a story where he had just

gotten off work. He was talking to a friend in the parking lot a police officer approached him and the way he explained it to me was um since he had the most quebecer accent he would speak to the police um so to kind of diffuse the situation i told them well we just finished our shift we're just hanging out just chilling couple of friends you know but and i talked i looked at my friend and he had already pulled out his camera it shouldn't be something that we have like the reflex of doing it really shouldn't be nothing happened the officer went away quickly but that's just an example of the kind of fear that was already there before the shooting so you have to imagine that black people in Huponsini are going to be on edge even more moving forward. It happened right next to my house.

Like I live nearby where it happened. So to think that this happened and it could have been me or anyone else of my friends that are black, it's a little bit traumatizing you know i'm not like directly connected to the family but to know that now there's a possibility that it could happen again it's scary especially for me at a young age you know i'm sounds like there's a lot of fear and a lot of lack of trust and i want to talk about that lack of trust um what if anything have police or local political leaders said they're going to do to address that lack of trust like either before the shooting or now yeah now that we're dealing with its consequences you know interestingly enough the mayor of repensigny her name is chantal deschamps

she's been mayor there for 24 years but this is her last year and she's been very vocal she put out a statement not only offering her condolences to the family, but she said in her statement, Repensani has changed a lot over the last few years. It's more diverse now. But she says that racial profiling and discrimination is unacceptable. And she says she's, even though she's leaving, she's committed to doing what's necessary to make sure that everyone, every resident in Rwepansini feels safe. Last month, the city said it would develop some kind of action plan, like with that goal in mind. And Rwepansini police is supposed to be working with a consulting firm, figuring out ways to notice racial profiling or to get rid of it. So the city has been pretty vocal

saying that it wants to change things. And the challenge now is to get rid of it. So the city's been pretty vocal saying that it wants to change things. And the challenge now is to get people in the black community to actually believe them. And what do we know about how the community is receiving this? Is it receiving these steps about fixing the mistrust as sincere efforts? Is there still a mistrust in relationship to those steps? There's skepticism, right? The sense I get from the people I spoke to and others, they feel like the situation has only gotten worse in the last few years. It hasn't gotten better. So they have a hard time.

I guess that's where the skepticism comes from. They have a hard time imagining that things will turn around or that the city has an idea on how to fix this problem. We don't know if the consulting firm is a step in the right direction or if it's actually like a waste of time. And, you know, also, Repensigny is a very specific example, but racial profiling is a big deal in Quebec as a whole. And, you know, there's still no sense that things are getting better in a city like Montreal, for example, where this has been a huge issue for decades. So I think for a lot of people, that's part of their skepticism. It's the fact that there's just no template in the province of Quebec to point to and say, here's an example that a situation like this can be either resolved or improved in the short term or medium term. can be either resolved or improved in the short term or medium term.

Now, one thing that really struck me about the story was that part of Repentigny is actually in Quebec Premier Francois Legault's riding, right? Yeah, and it's interesting you say that because last year I went to a protest in the Repentigny and there was a theme to the protest. It was called Driving While Black. They wanted to basically drive around. A lot of people were driving these luxury cars just to kind of, you know, highlight racial profiling, saying that as soon as I'm in a nice car, police pull me over. They stopped at City Hall, but the vehicles also stopped at the riding office of Premier François Legault. They wanted to get his attention because this was around the

time where Premier Legault was given plenty of opportunity to acknowledge the existence of systemic racism in Quebec. Think about everything that happened after the death of George Floyd, and whenever the opportunity came up, he always dismissed it. I think that there is some discrimination in Quebec, but there's no systemic discrimination. There's no system in Quebec of discrimination, and it's a very, very small. So the protesters last year were there to say, hey, Premier Legault, we're residents of Repensigny. We go through this every day. So you can't say systemic racism doesn't exist when it's alive and well in your own writing. And I guess to go back to your earlier question,

I guess that's another reason why people are skeptical. You'd think a mayor and a police chief have a lot of power or the ability to change things in Repensigny, but I think a lot of people look at it as sort of a top-down sort of setup, where if the premier says it's not a problem, it as sort of a top-down sort of setup, where if the premier says it's not a problem, then everything that's being said by officials in the Repensigny is just lip service, that it doesn't mean much because they're not going to have a sense of urgency when it comes to fixing the issue of racial profiling if Premier Legault hasn't sort of fully diagnosed the problem the way that people feel he should when it comes to actually moving towards a solution. So, you know, groups in Repensigny, they've actually asked the Legault

government to investigate the local police force. They asked this in 2019 and they haven't heard anything since. So I think there's just this frustration that's really focused and set in Repensigny, but overall it is sort of a provincial thing. As for the family of Jean-René Jurnier-Olivier, I know his mother has said that she wants justice for her son. Do you have a sense of what that justice might look like? From her perspective, she wants an arrest. That's what I would think because she also said

that what the police did that day on August 1st was criminal. And going beyond the family, the community as a whole, I believe, they want things to get better. There's that skepticism I talked to you about, but they want things to get better. They don't want this to get better. There's that skepticism I talked to you about, but they want things to get better. They don't want this to happen again. They don't want this to set a new bar that just keeps getting lower when it comes to the relationship between the black community and Repensigny. And I think I also have to mention the fact that when it comes to justice, you know, the Quebec Bureau of Independent Investigations, there's also skepticism about the job they're going to do in this case.

Actually, I think there's been one or two cases where what they're investigating leads to charges against a police officer. There's just very few times where it leads to charges. So I think there's going to be a lot of pressure to see if this pattern continues, where they investigate, we don't hear anything for months, and ultimately the officers or the officer is exonerated. So there's a lot of pressure there,

but I believe when it comes to the mother, anything less than an arrest will not be justice in her eyes. Anthony, thank you so much for guiding us through this story. Thank you very much. Before we go today, a tropical storm hit Haiti on Tuesday, just two days after a powerful earthquake struck the country's southwest. More than 1,400 people are known to have died in the quake, thousands more are injured,

and an unknown number of people are still missing. On tomorrow's show, we'll be covering what's unfolding in Haiti and the struggle of many Haitian Canadians in Quebec watching from afar, wanting to help. That's all for today. I'm El-Amin Abdelmahmoud, in for Jamie Poisson. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. Lameen Abdel-Mahmoud in for Jamie Poisson.

Thanks for listening to FrontBurner.