Montreal police are searching for additional suspects after a group of people assaulted two off-duty officers early Saturday.
“Someone recognized them on a terrace, yelled out ‘civilian police, civilian police,’ and the next thing they knew, they were being circled and punched and thrown to the ground,” Inspector Marie-Claude Dandenault of the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal told reporters on Tuesday. “(They) were circled and attacked out of the blue.”
The SPVM officers, dressed in civilian clothing, were attacked at Émilie-Gamelin Park near the Berri-UQAM métro station. They were immediately taken to a hospital. One suffered a mild concussion and both are bruised, Dandenault said.
So far, six people have been arrested in connection with the event. Two of those arrested were minors, a male and a female, one of which appeared in Youth Court.
“These six have been arrested, but there could be more,” Dandenault said. “The people who attacked them, for the most part, are all people who are known from our police services, so (they) may have interacted with (the officers)” in the past. Both officers work at Station 21, which is in the area where the attack took place.
Mélina Geoffroy, 20, who resides in the Ville-Marie borough, was charged on Monday with two counts of assaulting a public officer and two counts of intimidating justice system officials. She was released on bail and is scheduled to appear in court next week. Le Journal de Montréal reports that the prosecutor said Geoffroy saw the attack happening, decided to film it, and kicked the officers while they were on the ground before handing the footage over to police.
In the video, someone shouts “you’re not tough now,” as the cops are repeatedly pushed to the ground and kicked by the group.
Geoffroy was on probation at the time of her arrest. On Dec. 12, 2018, she pleaded guilty to having assaulted a police officer in October 2017, and to being in possession of a drug with the intent to traffic it. Besides being sentenced to two years of probation, she was also ordered to carry out 200 hours of community service within 14 months.
Tommy Janvier, 23, a resident of the Côte-Des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-De-Grâce borough who appeared in court Saturday, has been charged with one count of assaulting a public officer. He was released on Monday after agreeing to make a deposit of $500 and is scheduled to return to court on Oct. 7.
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Janvier was also on probation at the time of his arrest. On June 22, 2018, he pleaded guilty to breaking and entering. He was sentenced to a 90-day prison term, two years of probation and was ordered to carry out 100 hours of community service within a year.
There is a warrant out for the arrest of Jevon Humphrey of Lachine, 27, who faces the same charges as Geoffroy. Last week, another warrant was issued for his arrest at the Longueuil courthouse when he failed to show up for a court date in a case where he is charged with the dangerous operation of a motor vehicle and failing to stop at the scene of an accident. The charges are related to an incident that occurred on Sept. 24, 2018, in Kahnawake.
Hamine Hamidi Ben Hamida, 29, a resident of the Ville-Marie borough, has been charged with two counts of intimidating justice system officials.
“We are deeply affected by this, we find this to be totally unacceptable,” Dandenault said of the attack, noting she’s never seen anything like it occur during her 21 years with the SPVM. “These types of attacks are attacks on the police, but they’re also attacks on the whole judicial system.”
“I’ll be satisfied when I know everyone who took place in this has been identified and arrested,” Dandenault said.
Story cited here.
