Montreal-area cop pepper-sprays man while his kids are in the car

It’s a scenario many black men in the Montreal region have been complaining about for years. They’re driving around, minding their own business, when suddenly they’re pulled over by a police officer. John Chilcott says it has happened to him at least three times near his Châteauguay home over the last few years.

So on Monday of last week, when a young police officer stopped him outside the apartment building where he lives as he was preparing to drive his two youngest children to school, Chilcott assumed it was a case of “driving while black.”

On this occasion, Chilcott refused to comply when the officer asked him to identify himself, saying he first wanted to know why he was being stopped.

Chilcott’s wife, Rosemarie Edwards, was watching the scene unfold from her apartment window, and said she couldn’t believe what happened next.

After Chilcott again refused to identify himself, the police officer took out his pepper spray and sprayed Chilcott in the face while his daughters, age 10 and 6, were in the back seat of his Ford Explorer.

“My kids were screaming in the back: ‘Daddy, what is going on? My throat is sore!’ ” Chilcott, 43, told The Montreal Gazette. “I was saying, ‘This is not fair, why are you doing this to me?’ There was no reason to be intimidated by me. I was just taking my kids to school.”

When Edwards, 37, raced down the back stairs to the building’s the outdoor parking lot, her husband was in the driver’s seat using a water bottle to rinse his eyes, which were stinging. She said a police officer she identified as Constable Mathew Vill was ordering her husband out of the truck to arrest him.

In a confrontation she recorded on her iPhone, Edwards blasts Vill for pepper-spraying her family. “What the hell is wrong with you people?” she screams. She asks a female police officer, who showed up after Vill had radioed for backup, whether she would want her own children to be hit with pepper spray. The officer says that no, she wouldn’t.

Vill, who is seen in the video wearing a cowboy hat as a pressure tactic against pension reform, tells Edwards that her husband had tried to run away, which Chilcott says is nonsense.

As other officers arrive on the scene, Chilcott is handcuffed and placed in a police cruiser.

He was then taken to a police station, where he said he had to rinse his eyes at an eye-washing station for several minutes while still handcuffed.

He says officers then told him they would take the cuffs off if he agreed to co-operate, which he did. He was put in a room while police officers consulted with Vill. A few minutes later, he was told he could go home and that he would receive infraction tickets in the mail.

“I’m a hardworking, taxpaying citizen and I shouldn’t have to put up with this,” said Chilcott, who plans to file a complaint with the police ethics commissioner.

On Friday, four days after the incident, he received three tickets in the mail: for obstructing the work of a police officer, failing to turn off his vehicle when pulled over and for using his hazard lights unnecessarily. He plans to contest the tickets, which represent a total fine of $1,068.

Chilcott, who has no criminal record, said he suspects he is sometimes stopped by police because he is black and wears a colourful hoodie that some people think looks “thuggish.”

“Just because I wear a hoodie, it doesn’t mean I am one of them (a gangster or drug dealer),” said Chilcott, who has worked for a package handling company for many years. “I am a good father trying to raise my kids.”

Chilcott said he did use his hazard lights briefly that Monday morning while driving back home on St-François Blvd. after driving his two older children to school. He stopped his car in the left lane to tell his daughter’s friend, who was standing at a bus stop, that he would drive her to school after he picked up his two youngest children at home.

About the same time, Chilcott said, a police officer did a U-turn and drove behind him, flashing his lights. He said he wasn’t certain the officer was following him so he continued to drive the short distance to the back of his apartment building. He said Vill, who was working alone that morning, followed him, then turned on the lights and the siren.

When Vill approached Chilcott’s truck and asked him to identify himself, Chilcott said he told the officer he was picking up his children to take them to school, and that he wanted to know why he was being stopped. Chilcott’s two children had climbed into the back seat of the truck as the officer approached the driver’s window.

After coming into contact with the pepper spray, the children were treated at a local CLSC and then sent to a hospital for observation. They missed two days of school.

In Quebec, police officers are permitted to use pepper spray if they feel threatened or are in imminent danger.

Questioned by the Montreal Gazette, a spokesperson for the Châteauguay police department released a statement on Monday confirming that pepper spray was used during “an intervention after an individual refused to collaborate following a Highway Safety Code infraction.” Individuals at the scene were offered medical assistance but it was refused, the statement says. The department said it couldn’t provide any other details because the case is before the courts, adding that anyone who is unhappy with the conduct of an officer can file a complaint with the police ethics commissioner.

The head of the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR) questions the officer’s use of pepper spray, especially considering that children were in the truck.

“It appears there was an excessive use of force by the officer,” said Fo Niemi, CRARR’s executive director. “Some officers perceive that they’re in physical danger when in the presence of black men. Is it a lack of training about how to not escalate a situation? Is this a young police officer lacking the experience in dealing with a simple traffic stop?”

Chilcott acknowledged that he likely would not have been pepper-sprayed if he had identified himself to the officer. However, he said, police officers should be required to explain why they pull someone over.

“I wonder about the training of these young officers,” he said. “Why are they sent out there alone? They should be with a senior officer who can properly train them. I’m fed up being targeted because of my skin colour or the way I dress.”

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