No charges laid against police officers involved in Old Port shootout that injured 3 bystanders
Officers acted in self-defence as man discharged firearm at them, says top prosecutor
Quebec's top prosecutor, the Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales (DPCP), says it will not lay charges against three police officers involved in a shooting in Montreal's Old Port in September 2020, which left five people injured.
The province's police watchdog, the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes (BEI) conducted an investigation involving 20 investigators and 41 witnesses. Tuesday, the DPCP said it had concluded that the officers had acted in self-defence and their use of their firearms had been legal.
The events took place Sept. 13, 2020, when three police officers from the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal responded to a call in the Old Port. They told the BEI that a 33-year-old man had started shooting in their direction, hitting one of the officers.
Police said they returned fire and hit the suspect several times. Three civilians were hit in the crossfire, including one man who was hit in both legs by one of the police projectiles, according to the DPCP.
All of those injured, including the suspect, survived, the DPCP said. But the BEI said in an email the suspect died "a few months later for a reason unrelated to the police intervention of September 13."
WATCH | Eyewitness video of the shooting, published by CBC soon after the events:
"The intervention was legal and was based mainly on the duty imposed on police to ensure the safety and life of people," the DPCP said in a news release Tuesday.
"Considering the shots fired by [the suspect], the officers had reasonable grounds to believe that the use of force was necessary for their protection and that of other citizens."