Accused in cop attack: an engineering student
The man accused of attacking a cop who was ticketing him in Park Ex for using his phone at the wheel is still locked up although he has no criminal history. Mamadi III Fara Camara is a graduate student at the Polytechnique, but he’s finding out fast what can happen if you’re suspected of attacking a policeman.
I’m coming back later to add to this post that Mamadi Camara was entirely cleared of accusations against him, although police and, to some extent, media, were all complicit in assuming his guilt at the start.
walkerp 09:46 on 2021-02-02 Permalink
Did he attack the cop? If so, why? I have zero faith in the SPVM to tell the truth and not be racist. He may have feared for his life.
A priori, you have a guy with several degrees, working hard in his field and teaching with no prior criminal record. Then you have a member of an organization that tends to hire the poorly educated and have a history of violence and aggression towards minorities. Who do you think initiated the violence?
Bill Binns 10:38 on 2021-02-02 Permalink
“A guy with several degrees working hard”
So like Guy Turcotte, Mark Lepine, Kimveer Singh Gill or Valery Fabrikant?
University students and the highly educated have a much higher body count than the cops in this town. Be fearful of the right group.
Ephraim 10:48 on 2021-02-02 Permalink
@walkerp – They hire the poorly educated, because that is what applies for the job. That they don’t do, as the army does, and further educate them… is part of the failing.
Tim S. 11:58 on 2021-02-02 Permalink
Bill Binns: Two of the people on that list did not graduate from anything above high school, and were not enrolled in university either.
David663 12:41 on 2021-02-02 Permalink
Hm:
“Dans son profil sur un réseau social, l’accusé indique qu’il est chercheur au doctorat à l’École polytechnique de Montréal depuis janvier 2018.”
“L’école affirme également que Mamadi III Fara Camara y est étudiant à la maîtrise, et non au doctorat, comme il le mentionne sur un réseau social.”
And what’s the strange business about calling 911 and pretending to be a witness rather than a perp (or victim, if you’re going in for the ‘police are framing a black foreigner’ line)?
As for his peaceful disposition, what do we know? Contrary to what that article says, it appeared he moved here in late 2017 to take that Maitrise slot at Polytechnique. Maybe the guy is a nutcase, maybe he just found oit that after three years pretending to be a doctoral candidate, his application to a doctoral program had been rejected, causing him to lose it, or even attempt a suicide by cop.
That said, I’d like to know of he shot the cop, as initially reported. Non life threatening upper body injury, transportation to hospital from the scene, and discharge of a weapon would hint that way. But maybe the cop was old and had a heart attack! what’s the story, SPVM?
walkerp 14:38 on 2021-02-02 Permalink
This is just Occam’s razor. Obviously we are all speculating, but simply look at statistics. How many cops have been shot in Montreal during a traffic stop versus how many people of colour have been pulled over and harassed?
What would be the reasoning behind him shooting a cop? He is either a real criminal and desperate enough to try and escape (which appears not to be the case at all) or he is completely insane or something happened that made him for for himself enough to react physically.
This latter is clearly the most obvious possible explanation. I am skeptical if he even shot the cop. The cop could well have drawn his gun and shot himself in a struggle.
There will be more to this story and it won’t look good for the SPVM. Mark my words.
MarcG 16:30 on 2021-02-02 Permalink
There’s lots of info in article about the driver and very little about the officer, not even his name, which is easy to find in other press articles, and a quick search turns this report up: http://www.crarr.org/?q=fr/node/20055. No prize for investigative journalism here.
walkerp 17:44 on 2021-02-02 Permalink
Interesting… Thank you MarcG. A history of powertripping right there.
Chris 18:56 on 2021-02-02 Permalink
>Did he attack the cop? If so, why? … He may have feared for his life.
Pro life tip for y’all: The power imbalance between you and a cop is basically insurmountable. Even fearing for your life is not a good reason to attack a cop. You’re much more likely to live by being complaint. Not saying that’s how things should be, but that’s how they are.
dhomas 21:01 on 2021-02-02 Permalink
@MarcG: The Gazette listed the police officer’s name:
https://montrealgazette.com/news/man-charged-with-injuring-and-disarming-montreal-police-officer
David54 22:25 on 2021-02-02 Permalink
Wow, the Gazette actually had the best account, how often does that happen?
Anyway, this will be on the dashcam, so the African guy is toast (and there’s pretty much no way it was made up by the cop – if that story were fake the charges would have been tossed right away after the dashcam disproved).
Also, sounds like the cop isn’t a white guy, so ww can go back to the standard anti-cop grumbling here rather than the cops-are-racist beat everyone has been bopping to since everything popped off in America last year.
Mark Côté 22:36 on 2021-02-02 Permalink
I didn’t see anything about a dashcam. And if there was, none of that evidence would be presented yet anyway.
dhomas 06:32 on 2021-02-03 Permalink
@David∞: not sure why you think that because he’s not white, he can’t be racist. In the link MarcG shared, we see that this is not the first time this officer’s had trouble with a traffic stop, both times with people he might assume are Muslim. More info here:
https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2018/11/10/un-policier-a-exige-de-largent-avant-de-remettre-une-contravention
Anyway, there are a LOT assumptions and guesses here. I prefer to wait for the investigation to get facts. One fact that is readily available: the cop claims to have been disarmed. Whether this happened or not will be determined by the investigation. In either case, his duties should likely change in the future. Either because he lied about it or because he allowed himself to have his weapon taken. Neither is a good look for him. He should NOT be making traffic stops anymore.
dhomas 06:38 on 2021-02-03 Permalink
Also, I don’t know if Montreal police cars are equipped with dash cams. It’s really hard to find anything about this on the SPVM sure or anywhere else online. The closest I could find is this, which is fast from official:
https://www.davidanber.com/do-all-police-cars-have-dash-cams/
MrLavabo 13:59 on 2021-02-03 Permalink
The officer Sanjay Vig was in the law asking to pay cash the ticket since the drivers was telling he would flee to Alberta,it was just wrong in a technical way. Police bashing is easy until you need them. We have one of the most respectful police in the world… go to US and try to argument with a policeman… youll see… walkerp does not represent the majority of opinion here. Keep the good work SPVM and SQ.
Michael Black 02:18 on 2021-02-04 Permalink
Last week Yvonne Sam had an opinion piece in the Gazette. She mentioned people not sitting next to her on the bus. That’s something I used to do, until I noticed and changed thirty years ago. “I’m no racist” , I framed it as they not wanting me to sit next to them.
But I’ve been in crowded stores and seen cashiers with no customers. That seems racist, Chinese, black, wearing hijabs and people avoid them.
We have to get rid of the notion that racism is nazis and southerners spewing hate. Those people will rarely change, and fighting them is just good for people who like to fight.
It’s easy to blame cops, or the government for racism, way harder to look inside ourselves. If we can blame someone else, we don’t have to do a thing.
The cops are other, but so are Blacks, and Natives and Asians (and everyone else). So are homeless people. Maybe there are exceptions here, but they keep it mostly quiet (which is their right). “They” makes people one dimensional, it allows racism by seeing only one thing. Different does not mean inferior, but too often that’s how it plays out.
This is too important to be coopted or hijacked by white people. Racism isn’t a cause, or “proof” to be used against things you don’t like. For some people, it’s simply being alive.
People got tired, that’s why it’s visible now. But white people shouldn’t get carried away. There were lots of stories about police abuse, from the people willing to speak up. In 1986, the Quebec Human Rights Commission had hearings on racial profiling. That’s a long time to wait. About that time there was civil disobedience against apartheid, at Bata Shoes. The Gazette asked “why no Black people” and the reply was “I don’t know”. When anti-globalizatiin was big in 2000, “why is it so white”? “They don’t have internet”? In 2012, Darryl Grey said they were going to have a demonstration (it must have been the death of Treyvon Martin), but cancelled because of the mess the students were making. Police abuse is everyday, not something that happens at demonstrations.
Sixty years ago, southern sheriffs were racist. But so was that society. They didn’t accumulate as cops, they were racist and so was segregation.
There may be hardcore racist cops, but mostly it’s likely like those people who wouldn’t sit next to Yvonne Sam. They see someone not like the others, and they see criminal. And most people don’t care how criminals are treated. So any resistance is seen not as an honest citizen objecting to mistreatment, but as proof of criminality. It’s a very fine line between doing their job, and overstepping.
Invoking broad things don’t help. Hating cops doesn’t either. Neither does templating. If cops can dusappear so one can threaten to beat me, then isn’t there ways to get around bodycams? Cops are trained to be a certain way (which isn’t racist), but it ends up affecting lots of people.
Most people do rely on cops, which contrasts with those of us who have seen police abuse, how can cops protect us when they treat us like criminals?
I don’t know how to fix things, except that the voices of people who feel racism need to be louder, and in mainstream places. That has to be primary. I’m not perfect, but some of my understanding of this goes back over forty years.
And for the record, I’ve never heard of dashcams in Montreal, so either it’s very secret, or likely not done.