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A Montreal Cop Killed a Five-Year-Old and Got Off Scot-Free

The officer was not responding to an emergency, and no one knows why he was driving more than twice the legal speed limit.
Photo via Wikicommons

​Mike Belance was driving his kids to school on a Thursday morning last February when a car came barreling down the road and collided with his in the intersection. Belance was making a legal left turn. The other driver, a police officer in an unmarked car, was going approximately 75 miles per hour—more than twice the legal speed limit. The impact was enough to fling Belance's Kia sedan about ten feet off the road. It was the day before Valentine's Day, and by February 17, Belance's five-year-old son, who had been in the backseat of the car, was dead from his injuries. Belance and his 14-year-old daughter, while badly hurt from the collision, survived.

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As of today, no one has been charged in the child's death.

The officer, part of the provincial police force Sûreté du Québec, was not responding to an emergency. His lights were not flashing. His siren was not on. No one knows why he was driving so fast. Several hours after the crash, the Montreal police department began an investigation into what had happened and then turned the case over to the Crown prosecutor (the Canadian equivalent of an Attorney General). Earlier this month, they told the Belance family that there would not be any charges. Because there are no criminal charges, the Belance family will not receive any of the compensation that's normally given to crime victims' families. The Belance family never even found out the driver's name.

It still isn't clear—to the Belance family or anyone else—why no charges were pressed, despite the Canadian criminal code containing a number of offenses that seem like they would fit this crime: "dangerous driving causing death," "criminal negligence causing death," or even just plain "manslaughter." Yesterday, the DPCP (Montreal's agency for criminal and penal prosecutions) released a statement saying that they would arrange a meeting with the Belance family to discuss the "reasons for its decision not to charge," after which they would release that information to the public.

What happened to the Belance family is not an anomaly. Canadian cops are notoriously dangerous drivers. A few years ago, Benjamin Monty Robinson—an officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police—struck and killed a 21-year-old motorcyclist and then fled the scene to take a few shots of vodka to "calm his nerves." He was accused of "obstructing justice" (e.g. hitting and running), but didn't receive any jail time. Instead, the RCMP suspended him with full pay until he voluntarily retired in 2012. (Robinson is also the officer responsible for Tasering Robert Dziekański to death in 2007, but that's unrelated.)

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In September, 48-year-old Guy Blouin died after he was run over by a police cruiser in Quebec City. He had been riding his bicycle the wrong direction down a one-way street, and as the police drove up to pull him over, he got caught under the wheels of the car. An eyewitness says the car ran him over twice before officers pinned him to the ground and continued their arrest as blood poured out of his mouth. The officer driving the car was just ​promoted.

Then, in February, 41-year-old ​Alain Magloire was shot and killed by Montreal cops. When he died, officers reported that Magloire, who was homeless and suffered from mental illness, had been wielding a hammer and refused to drop it. But when a video of the incident surfaced many months later, it appeared that Magloire was first struck by a police cruiser and then fatally shot by the officers. After a Sûreté du Québec investigation, the Crown prosecutor concluded that there were "​no grounds to lay charges against the officers."

As ​The Globe and Mail points out, Canada's other provinces have "an independent body [that] investigates deaths, serious injuries and other high-profile cases that involve police officers." When no charges are filed, the investigators are still required to provide a detailed summary of their decision. In Quebec, there is no such requirement, and the investigations are carried out by other police forces. After Magloire's death, many called for the creation of a board of independent investigations in Quebec. Until one is created, the police in Quebec will keep policing themselves—a scary thought for anyone not in a uniform.

The DPCP did not respond to a request for comment.

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