Updates from February, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 19:58 on 2021-02-09 Permalink | Reply  

    Once again it’s a conceptual tug-of-war, with the South African variant of Covid detected in the Abitibi of all places – possibly even more – and François Legault pondering tighter pandemic measures for the spring break in March. Health workers will all have to wear N95 masks. Also, anyone getting into Canada by land must have tested negative in the previous 72 hours.

    Unless you’re an elite athlete, of course. And students all have to go to school unless they have a medical exemption, and Legault is talking about educational summer camps to push kids on through their education. Must reopen… must lock down… must reopen… must lock down…

     

    • Kevin 21:41 on 2021-02-09 Permalink

      The N95s are for janitors who will have to be fitted and trained: health workers were already wearing N95 masks, visors, gowns, gloves…

      Seriously, if we went to full lockdown for a month—not the half-assed stuff we’ve had since December — and then went to where we are now, we’d be done with this disease by May 1.

      The way we are going now we will see healthcare constraints for years

    • Ephraim 10:13 on 2021-02-10 Permalink

      Anyone know what percentage we are checking for variants? The UK is about 5%. The US is about 0.2%

    • Kevin 10:43 on 2021-02-10 Permalink

  • Kate 19:47 on 2021-02-09 Permalink | Reply  

    A man was shot Tuesday morning in Pointe-aux-Trembles. The victim took refuge in a nearby Basha restaurant, then was taken to hospital. Not much else has been revealed about the victim or the incident.

     

    • Kate 19:42 on 2021-02-09 Permalink | Reply  

      A gathering was held outdoors Tuesday to remember the 15‑year‑old girl killed in a drive‑by shooting on the weekend. TVA talked to Meriem Boundaoui’s brother‑in‑law about the young woman, who had only been here for two years.

       

      • Kate 10:04 on 2021-02-09 Permalink | Reply  

        Mamadi Camara has accepted an apology from the SPVM, but he’s going to sue for wrongful arrest and detainment.

        Update: There’s to be a provincial inquiry under a Superior Court judge. I wonder whether he will have to work on the principle that there’s no systemic racism in Quebec.

         

        • DeWolf 13:14 on 2021-02-09 Permalink

          Based on what I’ve read about the story, it’s not surprising they arrested him. But there’s a big difference between being arrested and charged, and I’m astonished the DPCP was willing to charge him with attempted murder based only on the testimony of the police officer who was attacked, despite video evidence and other eyewitness testimony to the contrary. It was only after Camara was charged that the police did a routine review of the evidence and found it exculpated him. In his column in La Presse, Patrick Lagacé suggested that the police caught their own error and fessed up to it means “the system works,” but I’m not so sure. It sounds like both the police and DPCP were sloppy to the point of negligence.

          On top of that, why were Camara’s personal details splashed all over the media? We still don’t know the identity of the Quebec City samurai sword killer and he’s a mass murderer. Meanwhile, Camara is an innocent man, wrongfully charged and detained for a crime he didn’t commit, and his face, name and place of study were gleefully broadcast all over the place. What kind of a double standard is that? (Hint: a racist one.)

        • walkerp 13:49 on 2021-02-09 Permalink

          I think the cops were deliberately trying to frame him. This wasn’t mistaken identity or just arrest the nearest black guy. Their crooked cop get in too deep with something and they went for a quick scapegoat. He was known for shaking people down in the neighbourhood. Again, pure speculation but he maybe shook down the wrong people and they came after him. His brothers showed up on the scene looking to suppress a scandal and thought they could pin it on some poor uber driver because he was black.

        • Michael Black 15:09 on 2021-02-09 Permalink

          If he’d really been the attacker, of course they want to get him off the street. And they can’t hold him on suspicion, for his own security they have to lay charges.

          My great grandfather was a “Metis lawyer” (I’m trying to figure if that’s him being pushed out of the mainstream, or being claimed by the Metis), but I’m not. What I know about law derives from being stopped too.many times, and asking law students and then reading books about the law.

          We have the right to refuse to identify ourselves except if there’s a legit reason. The “legit reason” is probably where things happen.

          That time in Jan 1985 when I was walking along with a new pressure cooker, and got stopped about where Adonis near Atwater is now. They asked for ID, I truthfully said I didn’t have any. And then I’m in handcuffs, “you look like someone we’re looking for” and off to the police station and into a cell. I think that’s borderline, and it’s comounded by being asked for ID too.many times, and not carrying it as a result. The Downtowner did have an article about someone being sought, and Leslie Lutsky mwntiined it, so maybe there was some legitimacy.

          People didn’t care until it could be packaged as a cause, so they jump from somewhere to this. That’s not about people who got tired of it happening, it’s white people reacting finally.

          There’s outrage about this, and a certainty of racism (to the extent that some people have to readjust as things change), but this is just another story that hit a peak. It’s the stories that don’t get told that matter more. It is scary to be in that situation.

          Walkerp is so sure of what’s happened, but I resent his commentary. Until he describes it happening to him, he’s just a bystander. The cops disappearing so one could tell me he wanted to beat me up is real, Nov 19, 1980. It’s my story, as the ongoing story of police abuse belongs to the people abused.

          This won’t change by third parties being outraged, the shift needs to be to the people who have experienced it becoming primary.The

          We aren’t spectators, we are participants. And the misbehaviour of cops is bound to be a reflection of society, not just something someone else needs to fix.

          I am completely protected by racism by the act of someone, my grandfather, or father, deciding we’d be white. That means I have no idea why I got stopped so many times by cops. I’ve always lived on the edges of society,for my own reasons, but I know what it’s like to ve dismissed for not getting in.line with the group think.

          The over the top reaction to this story ignores the low level stuff that happens routinely.

          It isn’t “question authority” but “question assumptions”

        • Ephraim 10:27 on 2021-02-10 Permalink

          @Michael – If the cop was so certain, then he would have no problem with your putting in a complaint to the commission. Let him argue his position in front of them. At least that way, it’s on his file with them… forever. I did it for a cop who played the game of “I don’t understand English”. Certainly harder to play the game a second time, when you have already had a file at the commission about it. It’s the reason I have no compunction with calling up a station and discussing matters with the station chief. (My favourite was asking the chief how it would look if I started emailing photos of his station’s cars parked on a pedestrian street… and it stopped the very next day.)

          While growing up, I got the same instructions about the police that I have heard given by black parents to their children. I know that as soon as they look at my name, my ID, and in some cases, my accent, that I’m subject to discrimination and racial profiling. It’s why I’m so willing to go to the commission… so the next generation doesn’t have to tell their children to be afraid of the police.

        • walkerp 12:25 on 2021-02-10 Permalink

          @ephraim, what are the steps to submitting a complaint to the commission?

        • Ephraim 19:20 on 2021-02-10 Permalink

          The form is at https://deontologie-policiere.gouv.qc.ca/en/le-commissaire/nos-services/file-a-complaint.html

          I expect that over the next few years, the proliferation of doorbell cams, dashcams and phone cams will severely cut into the shit that police get away with.

          If arrested, it is important to lock your phone. If you use face ID or fingerprint ID, they can unlock your phone passively (and it’s legal in the US). So if you have an Iphone, hold down power and volume and your phone will lock. (Older Iphones, 5 to 7, you have to hit the power button 5 times!) For Android, do a lockdown, hold your power for a bit and it’s a menu option on current Android versions. There are settings to set up an emergency call…. but you have to trigger it in settings… 3 to 5 pushes of the power button.

        • walkerp 22:51 on 2021-02-10 Permalink

          Thanks for that Ephraim. Will be good to have it handy.

        • GC 00:12 on 2021-02-12 Permalink

          Yes, thanks for that. I’m starting to feel like it’s only a matter of time before I have an unfortunate encounter with the police…

      • Kate 09:59 on 2021-02-09 Permalink | Reply  

        TVA tallies the recent shootings in the north end, both those with victims and incidents when shots were heard and shells later found, but no victim turned up. They count 33 such incidents over the last six months.

        People in St-Léonard are particularly shaken up by the killing of a 15‑year‑old girl on the weekend. It’s one thing if gang members are popping caps at each other, but when innocent passersby get hurt, it’s different. It took the death of 11‑year‑old Daniel Desrochers in a car bomb explosion in 1995 to make police crack down seriously on that decade’s biker war. Will something similar happen now?

         

        c
        Compose new post
        j
        Next post/Next comment
        k
        Previous post/Previous comment
        r
        Reply
        e
        Edit
        o
        Show/Hide comments
        t
        Go to top
        l
        Go to login
        h
        Show/Hide help
        shift + esc
        Cancel