Quebec Police Pepper Sprayed a Driver While His Kids Were in the Back Seat

A black Montreal-area man is questioning how police are trained after he was pepper-sprayed in his car, with his two young children in the back, apparently because he refused to identify himself during a traffic stop last Monday.

According to the Montreal Gazette, John Chilcott, a 43-year-old man from Châteauguay, Quebec, was driving down St-François Blvd. on his way back home to pick up his daughters, age six and ten, and then drop them off at school.

He briefly used his hazard lights while stopping by a bus stop to tell one of his daughters' friends that he could drive her to school later. Around the same time, a police cruiser did a U-turn and drove behind him while flashing its lights, but Chilcott wasn't sure if it was following him and drove back to his apartment. It was then that the officer turned on the lights and sirens, stopping Chilcott outside his apartment.

During the stop, Chilcott's daughters got into the back of his car.

The officer asked Chilcott to identify himself, but Chilcott, who told the Gazettehe assumed it was a case of "driving while black" (he's been pulled over three times in the past few years for no apparent reason), and refused, saying he was driving his kids to school and wanted to know why he was being stopped.

The officer asked Chilchott to identify himself again. Chilcott again refused, at which point the officer took out his pepper spray and sprayed Chilcott in the face.

"My kids were screaming in the back: 'Daddy, what is going on? My throat is sore!'" Chilcott told the Gazette.

Chilcott's wife, Rosemarie Edwards, was watching from their apartment balcony and rushed downstairs, then began filming with her phone. At that point, Chilcott was in the driver's seat using a water bottle to rinse his eyes as the officer, who Edwards identified as Const. Mathew Vill, was ordering him out of the truck to arrest him.

In the video, Vill tells Edwards her husband tried to run away. More officers arrive and Chilcott is handcuffed, placed in a police cruiser and taken to a police station, where he said he had to rinse his eyes while still handcuffed.

Chilcott was released later that day, and on Friday, received three tickets in the mail—one for obstructing a police officer, one for failing to turn off his vehicle when pulled over, and one for using his hazard lights unnecessarily, which add up to a total of $1,068 in fines.

The 6- and 10-year-olds were treated at a local community service center after coming into contact with the pepper spray, then sent to a hospital for observation, missing two days of school.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Châteauguay police department confirmed to the Gazette that pepper spray was used but couldn't provide more details.

Chilcott, who has no criminal record, told the Gazette he suspects he's targeted by police because he's black and wears a hoodie. If he's right about being targeted because of his race, he definitely isn't the first—police in Quebec have apparently built quite the reputation for racial profiling and a complaint system skewed in favor of the cops.

"I wonder about the training of these young officers," Chilcott told the Gazette. "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 color or the way I dress."

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