Montreal community seeks answers after police kill man
MONTREAL — Freddy Alberto Villanueva and his older brother, Danny, were playing dice with friends in a park in a tough Montreal neighbourhood when police rolled up and asked to talk to the elder sibling.
Moments later, 18-year-old Freddy lay mortally wounded, struck down in a hail of police bullets.
Another 18-year-old and a 20-year-old man were wounded in the ugly confrontation that triggered memories among some of the city's minority community leaders of violence involving police.
Danny Villanueva, 20, was questioned and released Sunday, according to his sister, Patricia Villanueva. No other arrests were made, according to police, and the two officers were not hurt.
A photo of Freddy Alberto Villanueva at a wedding. He was identified by his family as the teenager shot by Montreal police on Saturday night. (Peter McCabe/The Canadian Press)
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“It's not right, what has happened here,” Ms. Villanueva said in an interview.
“There was nothing to provoke this kind of reaction. Freddy was a good boy who has never done anything wrong.”
About 100 people held a street protest in the neighbourhood Sunday night. One protester carried a sign that said, “Police assassins.”
Later in the evening, protesters used garbage, cardboard and tires to set fires in the streets in the neighbourhood where the young men were shot. At least six vehicles were torched.
As a fire truck arrived to fight one blaze, protesters pelted it with bottles, forcing a hasty retreat. Dozens of riot police worked into the evening to disperse the crowd.
Early Monday, police confirmed that two officers were injured, including one who was shot in the leg.
"One was injured in the leg by a bullet, another was struck by a flying object,"said Montreal police spokesman Constable Raphaël Bergeron.
An ambulance attendant and a television cameraman were also reported injured. None of the injuries were considered serious.
The fire from one burning vehicle spread to a building containing businesses and apartments. Firefighters began to fight the numerous blazes just before midnight.
The violence, which started near the park where the men were shot, spread more than a kilometre away. More fires were set and a city bus was pelted with projectiles.
A local news helicopter showed the bus racing away from a small crowd, sparks flying from its undercarriage.
Montreal police said an officer opened fire after a man attacked a second officer during an arrest. Some 20 young men surrounded the officers and hurled insults, according to the initial police account.
A spokesman for the police force said the men who were gunned down were unarmed, but officers felt threatened.
“People want to know: If they weren't armed, why such force?” said Jean-Ernest Pierre, a lawyer and owner of a Montreal radio station popular among the city's ethnic minorities.
He said his station was beset Sunday by angry calls.
“We've seen many cases where blacks and other minorities have been shot for no reason. People are angry, but more than that, they want answers.”
The city force stopped talking Sunday after handing the investigation over to the Sûreté du Québec, as required under provincial law.
Sergeant Grégory Gomez del Prado, spokesman for the provincial police, said it was too early to confirm anything but the barest details.
Sgt. Gomez del Prado said a male and a female officer drove up to the dice game in a squad car at 7:10 p.m. on Saturday night in Montreal North and tried to arrest a man when an altercation took place.
Witnesses in the neighbourhood, known among some officers as “The Bronx” because of its gang activity and crime, tried to fill in the gaps with their own accounts.
Ms. Villanueva, a 26-year-old accounting student, and witness Samuel Medeiros say an officer wanted to talk to Danny, but he refused to go to the officer, protesting that he hadn't done anything wrong.
When the officer arrested Danny, harsh words were exchanged and a scuffle ensued, Mr. Medeiros, 18, said in an interview.
“You can see where the glass was smashed [on the police car],” he said, showing the cellphone video he captured of the aftermath.
By several witness accounts, Freddy Villanueva was approaching the scuffle and yelling insults at the officer when the female officer opened fire.
“The police reaction really seemed over the top,” said Mr. Medeiros, who says he was a passing acquaintance of the Villanueva brothers.
“You'd think they could have called for backup.”
Witness accounts of the number of shots fired ranged from four to 10.
Several men were milling around the area, but most witnesses disputed the initial police claims that the two officers were surrounded by a menacing crowd of 20.
For some in Montreal's minority community, the shooting stirs bad memories. In the mid 1990s, two shootings and the beating of taxi driver Richard Barnabé by Montreal police sparked outrage and calls for reform.
Mr. Barnabé died in 1996 after spending two years in a vegetative state.
Earlier this year, Quebec's chief coroner ordered a public inquiry into the 2005 shooting of Mohammed Anas Bennis. The 26-year-old was gunned down as police executed a search in a fraud case. Police said he was wielding a knife, a version doubted by his family. Provincial officials have steadfastly refused to release a report into the incident.
Ms. Villanueva, whose family came to Canada from Honduras in 1998, said Danny had had previous brushes with the police, but she declined to offer details.
She maintained Freddy's only previous offence was a speeding ticket.
One man, who would identify himself only as a friend of the Villanueva brothers, said the younger Villanueva “had nothing to do with street gangs or any other crime.”
18-year-old student shot and killed by Montreal police, family seeks answers
August 10, 2008 - 17:50
Jessica Murphy, THE CANADIAN PRESS
MONTREAL - A police patrol in a Montreal park turned ugly Saturday night when an officer opened fire on three young people, killing one man and wounding two others.
An 18-year-old man, identified by his sister as Freddy Alberto Villanueva, died from his wounds in hospital. The other two, an 18 and a 20-year-old, are reported to be in stable condition.
According to police, it was then that one of the officers opened fire.
The officers were not wounded in the incident.
Quebec provincial police are investigating the incident and are interviewing witnesses.
"We do think there are many witnesses, because at that time, around 7 p.m., there were a lot of people in the park or in the surroundings of the park," said Quebec provincial police spokesman Gregory Gomez del Prado. "There were also people who were part of the altercation, and many people playing sports or just sitting in the park."
According to police, there is currently no information on the reasons behind the police intervention and attempted arrest.
"It's too early to say what happened exactly," said Gomez del Prado. "We're talking about the death of a man. It's a major investigation."
Villanueva's sister, Julissa, said in an interview from her home in the Montreal suburb of Laval, that the family is waiting for answers.
"We only know what we see in the news, in the newspapers, that's all," she said, breaking into tears as she spoke about her brother, a student who wanted become a mechanic.
Violence sparked by protest against fatal shooting Saturday by police.
Hundreds of riot police chased a group of roving youths early Monday after a night of rioting and vandalism in a North Montreal neighbourhood set off by the fatal police shooting of an 18-year-old man over the weekend.
Two police officers were injured, including a female officer shot in the leg, after rioters set several fires and clashed with police in the streets of Montreal North late Sunday, Montreal municipal police spokesman Ian Lafrenière said.
An ambulance technician also suffered minor injuries.
"We don't fear for their lives," Lafrenière said of the injured.
Plumes of acrid smoke filled the air above the low-income housing units from cars and garbage bags set ablaze on several streets, the CBC's Justin Hayward reported from the scene. A propane tank was also set on fire, sending blasts of flames into the sky.
Fire trucks arriving to fight the blazes were pelted with beer bottles, police said.
Police arrested several people on the streets.
People were apprehended with guns ... so we're talking about criminalized people," Lafrenière said.
The park is in a predominantly Haitian neighbourhood where tensions between police and young people run high, according to residents.
"The police are always creeping around here, hassling people," one unidentified youth told CBC News as he stood in front of a looted butcher shop.
Altercation in park led to shooting
The violence began after a Sunday afternoon protest at Henri Bourassa Park, the site of Saturday's police shooting, where two other young men were also wounded as two police officers attempted to make an arrest.
Police said a group of 20 young people surrounded the officers and some members of the group rushed toward them.
At that point, one of the officers opened fire, police said.
One man died of his wounds in hospital. Two other young men, age 18 and 20, suffered non-life-threatening injuries and are reported to be in stable condition.
The dead man's sister identified him as Freddy Alberto Villanueva. Julissa Villanueva said the family has no information about the incident, beyond what they've heard and read in the news.
Quebec provincial police have taken over the investigation into the shooting and are in the process of interviewing witnesses.
"It's too early to say what happened exactly," said provincial police spokesman Gregory Gomez del Prado. "We're talking about the death of a man. It's a big investigation."
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