BY GRANT HARGRAVE
MONTREAL - Four Montreal Urban Community police officers found guilty of beating Richard Barnabé were sentenced July 13. Pierre Bergeron and Louis Samson received 90 days in prison, André Lapointe 60 days, and Michel Vadeboncoeur 180 hours of community work. The jail sentences are to be served on weekends.
Barnabé, a 39-year-old taxi driver, was arrested and beaten after a car chase in December 1993 for allegedly breaking a church window. He has been in a "neuro-vegital state" ever since.
The four officers are currently free while awaiting the outcome of their appeals and have been suspended without pay. Montreal police chief Jacques Duchesneau says he must wait for the results of a police-ethics hearing and the appeals before deciding whether or not to fire the cops.
Claudette Barnabé-He'luset, the victim's sister, characterized the sentences as "very light." She had hoped for long jail terms. She also indicated that "justice will only have been served once the four have been fired from the police force.... Montrealers don't want those kind of police officers."
On the other side, the Policeman's Brotherhood used a news conference featuring the group's president, Yves Prud'Homme, and a full page ad in the daily papers to press its campaign against the convictions and the sentences.
The campaign by the cops attempts to win support by raising the threat that police will refuse to intervene to protect citizens' "property or lives" from suspects who "act strangely" if they are afraid that they will be open to criminal charges. It claims that police work is dangerous, the cops are not properly equipped due to budget cuts, and that the force is under staffed. Under these conditions, they say, mistakes are made, but police officers should not be held responsible for the results of their actions.
Editorials in the Montreal Gazette and the national edition of the Toronto Globe and Mail have called on the police chief to fire the four convicted officers to "restore public confidence" in the force, but they stop short of calling for increased sentences.
An editorial in Montreal's La Presse says the sentences are enough to send a "clear signal" of "zero tolerance" for brutality to the police, and asks sympathetically if it is necessary that the officers lose their jobs for life.
On July 21, a press conference was held by the newly formed Concerned Citizens against Police Brutality. Spokesman Dan Philip accused the Brotherhood of showing contempt for the public. "When are the police going to realize that they have to take responsibility for their actions?" he asked.