Longueuil told to pay $12K in damages over racial profiling incident

The Quebec Human Rights Commission has ruled in favour of a Montreal man who says he was racially profiled by police in 2012.

The commission recommended that the City of Longueuil pay $12,000 in damages to Joël Debellefeuille, who was tailed by Longueuil police for 11 blocks while on his way to drop his son at daycare.

The officers intercepted him and demanded to see his identification. They left after checking his ID.

Debellefeuille argued that the stop and check was racially motivated and made a complaint to the police ethics commission. The complaint was dropped in 2016 because one of the officers involved was dismissed from the force.

Debellefeuille then pursued it to the Quebec Human Rights Commission, saying that he wanted the other officer involved to bear some share of responsibility.

On Tuesday, Debellefeuille said he was "elated" to hear that the commission had upheld his complaint, but noted that he had initially asked for a larger compensation.

"I was pleased with the outcome, [but] would have liked a little more. Not in the sense of financial retribution, but in the sense of, you know, it'll sting them where it hurts," he said in a phone interview.

The decision also asked that Longueuil police provide training on racial profiling to its officers.

The City of Longueuil has not yet said whether or not they will pay Debellefeuille. They have until Friday to decide.

The recommendation is not binding, and if the city decides not to pay, the case will continue to a human rights tribunal.

Debellefeuille has filed three complaints relating to interactions with police over the last decade.

In 2009, he was pulled over and ticketed by Longueuil police for failing to show identification and for having expired car insurance.

A judge later threw out the tickets, saying that the officers involved pulled him over because after running the registration on the vehicle, they didn't believe the BMW that Debellefeuille was driving could be his because of his skin colour.

"The fact of falsely or ignorantly believing that the family name 'Debellefeuille' can't be the surname of someone with black skin can only show a flagrant lack of knowledge about Quebec society," wrote municipal court Judge Pierre-Armand Tremblay in his decision, handed down in 2012.

Debellefeuille won a complaint with the police ethics commission relating to the same issue, with the two officers who pulled him over being suspended without pay for five days each.

He also tried to pursue the complaint to the Quebec Human Rights Commission, but it was dropped because the it was more than six months after the incident.

Debellefeuille still has another case pending with the Quebec Human Rights Commission relating to an incident that took place in 2015.

• From 2015: Longueuil man takes police racial profiling claim to human rights commission

Debellefeuille, again in his vehicle, was approached by police in a hotel parking lot and ticketed for not wearing a seatbelt.

He said when he looked more closely at the $126 ticket, he saw it was for driving with a passenger under 16 who wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Debellefeuille insists he had, in fact, been wearing his belt and was alone in the car.