Man released in Park Ex cop case
Attache ta tuque. Based on video evidence, Mamadi Fara Camara has been released and all charges have been stayed against him in the Park Extension police beating case. Going by this new story, Camara should never even have been a suspect. The Polytechnique must invite him back immediately.
But what happened to Sanjay Vig still has to be explained.
Update: Incidentally, CBC is now describing Mr Camara as a doctoral student and the Polytechnique is prepared to allow him to resume his work there.
CTV says Sanjay Vig had ticketed Mr Camara earlier that day, but that nothing linked him to the later incident, which remains to be elucidated.
MarcG 18:40 on 2021-02-03 Permalink
So the cop didn’t even know who attacked him? And the driver did actually call the police as a witness and not as some kind of trick like the press accused him of earlier? I’d like to hear his account of how they treated him in custody.
walkerp 19:02 on 2021-02-03 Permalink
I speculate also that Sanjay Vig’s ethnicity is a factor here. I imagine it is not easy being a cop of colour anywhere in North America but especially in Quebec.
I’m amazed that the system let Camara off so quickly. I hope it is a sign of things improving and not just that the video was so batshit crazy they had no choice.
david225 19:16 on 2021-02-03 Permalink
^ Wasn’t your very last post on this confirming that the cop is guilty of racism? Now you’re here saying that of course the cop is innocent, he’s non-white? And you’ve moved on to expressing surprise that the prosecutors’ office – a bastion of progressivism in Quebec – would dismiss so quickly? Let me guess, they’re racist too?
Also, Kate, while it’s nice the guy is innocent, this entire incident outed the uber driver as fraudulently claiming to be a doctoral candidate when he’s just a year three master’s student. While I’m sure they’ll let him back in, the humiliation of that (and, I guess potential for repercussions in his permanent record) may not be so easy to overcome. Bad luck for him to get caught up in this.
Kate 19:50 on 2021-02-03 Permalink
david, the distinction for most of us between a master’s and a doctorate is the least important detail in this whole shemozzle.
MarcG 19:54 on 2021-02-03 Permalink
That bit about the difference between a doctoral candidate and masters student is surely satire.
MarcG 19:59 on 2021-02-03 Permalink
I think I finally understand why david### doesn’t use the same handle every time: it prevents me from writing a script that replaces his name with “The African”.
walkerp 20:02 on 2021-02-03 Permalink
David, clearly you are not capable of holding two competing ideas in your head at the same time. I will try and spell it out for you.
The cop or other cops may well have profiled Camara because he was black. This is possible to do even though the cop himself is a person of colour (hint: systemic racism).
That the cop is a person of colour is a possible factor in his behaviour (being extra aggressive to prove to his colleagues that he is one of them; attacking another person of colour who is a step lower than him on the power scale).
His behaviour is to be criticized as is the entire force, but I can also by sympathetic to him as a human being who may have had some tough situations in his life because of his ethnicity.
Yes, the prosecutor’s office are as seeped in systemic racism as the cops themselves. Cops and prosecutor’s often collude together to get convictions (their goal) and it is easier to convict minorities, again because of inherent biases by juries and judges.
I hope that helps you actually think about some of these issues a little more deeply.
walkerp 22:07 on 2021-02-03 Permalink
Ah the plot thickens. So now the story is that Camara witnessed something and called the cops, but he was the one who got arrested. So the implication is that Sanjay Vig was actually attacked but by someone else. I am still skeptical, simply because of the way the cops keep changing the story. This whole thing stinks. I wonder if it was cop on cop violence? Or some corrupt deal that went sour?
dhomas 00:04 on 2021-02-04 Permalink
Still lots of guesswork going on in these threads. Personally, I’ll wait for the facts to come to light. I believe there will be an independent investigation, from what I’ve been reading. What this whole story has shown, though, is that body cams would likely take a lot of the guesswork out of these types of situations. I’m hopeful that there will be some silver lining here in that this might accelerate the adoption of body cams.
qatzelok 12:19 on 2021-02-04 Permalink
“It turns out that the event actually took place in London, Ontario, and involved a teenager being hit by a scooter on the sidewalk in 2017. We apologize for the inaccuracy and any social damage these provocative errors may have caused.” – Commercial Media
walkerp 13:40 on 2021-02-04 Permalink
Not sure how you can take a dig at the media here. They just reported what the cops were telling them. It’s the SPVM who were lying.
I didn’t realize, but supposedly Camara spent six nights in jail. He must be fucking traumatized. I hope he sues the shit out of them.