Montreal City Weblog

Kate 07:07 on 2020-06-21 Permalink Reply  

• david85 08:28 on 2020-06-21 Permalink

  Odd one.

  51 year old guy is engaged in some sort of domestic situation as a result of which the cops are called. When he sees the cops, he makes a run for it, gets about 300 meters, when he stops or is caught. Some sort of exchange occurs during which the guy said that he was armed, the cops give him a (my guess is probably quite generous) dosing of Agent 728’s finest cayenne seasoning. The guy drops and proceeds to croak.

  Stroke? Heart attack? Anaphylaxis brought on by the pepper spray?

  If he’s asthmatic so that anaphylaxis could have killed him – he had just run 300 meters, so he’d be in rough shape already. In that part of town, a 51 year old is surely going to be overweight, bordering on obese. That he ran for it when it was essentially pointless suggests he was drunk or drugged up.

  I’m guessing that the policing issue here won’t be about whether they did anything wrong in the pursuit or use of force, it’ll be about whether/how they administered first aid once the guys dropped.

• Janet 08:38 on 2020-06-21 Permalink

  “In that part of town, a 51 year old is surely going to be overweight, bordering on obese.”

  HUH?!?

• Daniel 08:43 on 2020-06-21 Permalink

  I am also curious about the methods and conclusions of this rigorous forensic investigation, david#

• david85 08:53 on 2020-06-21 Permalink

  Janet: One thing you’ll note about cruising that area of Ontario Street is that it remains very much an old school hot dog-eater neighborhood, at least in what concerns its residents. Sure, there are some youngs sprinkled in, but at 51, the guy was very likely a hot dog-eater, so very likely overweight/obese.

  Daniel: Just idle speculation, I’m not claiming to have any special knowledge. How does a guy drop dead on a street after taking a (we assume) liberal dose of pepper spray? Well, that running could have been a major contributing factor if the guy had heart disease or asthma. Deaths from anaphylactic shock after being dosed with pepper spray are very rare, but do occur with asthmatics (and, I suppose, possibly among others), and most asthmatics suffer from exercise-induced asthma so that this 300 meter run could have been a stressor. And, of course, he could have suffered a stroke.

• Raymond Lutz 09:27 on 2020-06-21 Permalink

  “There is evidence that certain factors, including Excited Delirium Syndrome, positional asphyxia, pre-existing health conditions, and drug use, are associated with OC spray deployment, and in some cases, injuries or death.” (from a Correctional Service Canada webpage). No where hot dogs are mentioned.

• mare 10:42 on 2020-06-21 Permalink

  Let me pile on this IANAD speculation and say that running 300m as if your life depends on it* in 27°C weather (after a day of 31°C) might have exacerbated the bodily stress inducing effects of “pepper” spray.

  all those BLM stories do affect people’s view of the police.

• J. Ryan 10:58 on 2020-06-21 Permalink

  @mare BLM stories!? Nah my guy, those are police brutality, excessive force stories and improperly trained police stories. (REFORM THE POLICE) Which of course leads into Black lives affected in the majority. But I 100% agree with your assessment on what possibly happened.
  @david85 you were on a roll untill you opened up “hot dog” gate, but you as well I understand what you are saying.

• GC 11:50 on 2020-06-21 Permalink

  Police brutality stories affect people’s view of the police, Mare? Well, yes.

• Raymond Lutz 12:14 on 2020-06-21 Permalink

  Also, we should call it capsaicinoid spray, not ‘pepper spray’ (as the active agent is frequently a synthetic molecule resembling the plant extract). NB, military can’t use this (neither CS gas): they are classified as chemical weapons. Speaking of language drifts crafted by our overlords: ‘rubber bullets’ are really less lethal impact weapons and ‘harsh interrogation techniques’ is torture.

• Chris 12:44 on 2020-06-21 Permalink

  >we should call it capsaicinoid spray, not ‘pepper spray’

  Yeah right, cuz that’s so much easier to spell and say. Good luck with that.

• Bill Binns 13:03 on 2020-06-21 Permalink

  “In that part of town, a 51 year old is surely going to be overweight, bordering on obese.”

  LMAO
  Since I live about 500 meters from that location, I can say with some authority that the prevailing body type for 51 year old dudes in the neighborhood is the underweight ropy muscled “twitchy Golem” type.

  Don’t judge us by the people in line at Chez Phillippe.

• Raymond Lutz 13:56 on 2020-06-21 Permalink

  @Chris: “OC spray” for short… this is the term used in Correctional Service Canada documents.

• mare 15:42 on 2020-06-21 Permalink

  I meant that before the BLM protests the stories about police brutality didn’t make it to the JdeM, or many other news sources in Quebec. So more people are informed about this issue, or at least got more exposure to it.

• david85 16:02 on 2020-06-21 Permalink

  I stand by my semi-informed slur describing the denizens of Saint Jacques as hot dog eaters, though I concede that the man in this case may not, himself, have been a hot dog eater.

• GC 20:05 on 2020-06-21 Permalink

  Mare: apologies if I misinterpreted your position.

• MarcG 08:02 on 2020-06-22 Permalink

  Kate, I hope you’re paying attention and harvesting this gold for the calendar

• Kate 17:08 on 2020-08-25 Permalink

  MarcG, I was looking up something else and spotted this comment for the first time. Calendar fodder indeed!