Quebec’s guardian dog is dealing with scrutiny and distrust, since he investigates the death of a 15 -year -old police in Longueuil, who.
In a rare media conference on Tuesday, Brigitte Bishop, the agency’s head, known as the BEI, insisted on the independence and impartiality of the office.
The bishop, who assumed his role in April, seemed to be rejecting a feeling of distrust that was already extended by the community of South Shore, where Nooran Rezay, a student of a nearby high school, was shot dead by a police officer after receiving a 911 call that informed a group of armed people.
Nooran’s family insists that he was unarmed and only wore a backpack full of books.
Families and friends of Nooran said Monday that they feared that the investigation would not lead to Justice and Bishop said that he had heard of citizens who were trying to gather evidence to carry out their own investigations on what happened, which suggests a lack of faith in the BEI.
“You have to trust us,” said Bishop. “We are the ones who carry out the investigation. We are an independent office. Our mission is to shed light on what happened and that is what we are going to do.”
In a rare press conference, the chief of the Quebec policeman said that the only weapon recovered from the scene was a belonging to the police. Brigitte Bishop insisted that the agency would fairly investigate the death of Nooran Rezay, 15, and asked the public to cooperate with the researchers.
450 investigations, only 2 led to positions
In their nine years of history, only two incidents that the agency has investigated have led to charges of any kind against officers, none of the cases as high profile as the one that the agency currently faces.
Somehow, that is because the BEI is not like a regular police department. It is a special entity, created in 2016, to investigate cases in which people are injured or killed during police operations.
But due to its broad mandate, it does not exclusively investigate incidents in which there is a suspicion that the police have committed a crime, which is why most of their investigations do not result in criminal prosecutions, said the prosecutors of the crown to CBC earlier this year.
Even so, Bei plays a role as a criminal investigator. He was forced to investigate the accusations of sexual aggression against the interferential police officers in Quebec and criminal accusations in which the victim is an indigenous person. He has arrested 29 officers in this role since 2016.
It also provides the findings of their investigations on incidents in which people are injured or killed during police operations to prosecutors who can then decide to present charges, which has almost never happened.
Bei has been involved in more than 450 investigations from your beginning. Several dozen of cases are still being investigated or submitted to prosecutors and have been submitted to prosecutors and are waiting for a decision on charges.
The former officers represent almost 50% of Bei’s staff
In one of the two cases that led to chargesOfficer Danny Poliquin was accused of assaulting a man during an arrest. It was acquitted. Another case saw an officer accused of an infraction of dangerous driving, not a criminal office, during a police search that resulted in an accident that injured two people.
As for mortal shootings, the BEI has investigated 52 cases in which a police officer has fatally shot a person. Eight of those cases are still being investigated or in the hands of prosecutors, but so far, none has resulted in positions.
In each of those cases, the DPCP, the Quebec Crown Prosecutor’s Office, considered that the use of force by the officers was legal, which means that it was “reasonable and necessary under the circumstances” and authorized to protect themselves or other people.
The BEI has faced criticism for the almost zero load rate resulting from his investigations. Some critics say that the agency is too pro-political, highlighting that many of its investigators are former police officers.
As of April, the BEI employed 45 investigators, 22 of whom were former police officers. They are not allowed to direct research on files that involve their former employers.
Tari Ajadi, a member of the Board of the Justice Society of the East Coast that has investigated in the police supervision agencies, said that the fact that the BEI has almost 50 percent of the former officers is one of the various reasons why he believes that the agency is ineffective.
“There is a culture within the surveillance of your own protection,” he said. “So I don’t think that, as a consequence, these investigations are carried out in good faith.”
The right to remain silent
The bishop, the head of Bei, said on Tuesday that the investigators had met with the Longueuil police officers involved in the NOoran shooting. But what the researchers could get from that meeting is not clear.
Police officers involved in the incidents investigating the BEI must legally meet with investigators, but have the right to remain silent in those meetings.
The Quebec police guardian dog, the BEI, is investigating after a 15 -year -old boy was shot dead by the Longueuil police on Sunday.
That right was affirmed in a judicial decision of 2024 that declared that, since an Bei investigation can result in criminal charges and, therefore, be considered a criminal investigation, police officers must be informed before meeting with investigators who have the right not to speak.
That judicial decision led to the reduction of the suspensions of two police officers who lied to the investigators in 2017 because the judge considered that they had not been informed of their rights, and the evidence against him was expelled.
On Tuesday, the Longueuil Police said in a statement that the officer involved in the NOoran shooting is indefinite license and the police service said he was cooperating with the Bei investigation.
