Lawyer of Black man wrongfully jailed calls out flawed system

MONTREAL (CityNews) – Mamadi Camara, a black man who was wrongfully arrested and detained by Montreal police in January was not a victim of racial profiling, but a botched investigation contributed to him spending six days in jail, according to a report released on Friday by a Quebec superior judge.

“Reading the report was quite a painful exercise. It’s not something that’s easy, it’s really traumatizing reliving the moments,” explained lawyer Virginie Dufresne-Lemire.

“He talked a lot about the investigation and that there was a great deal of exculpatory evidence that was made available within the first hours of the arrest. And these elements were not taken into account and that’s quite problematic and he saw that there were many errors that were made.”

Judge Louis Dionne was appointed by the Quebec government to conduct an investigation into the conduct of the SPVM after a police officer was attacked from behind and disarmed.

“I feel like his investigating was very narrow in the subject of racial profiling which is quite complicated discrimination at large is quite a complex concept,” said Dufresne-Lemire.

Camara, the man who called the police, ended up being the one wrongfully detained. He was eventually exonerated.

“How can you explain that so [much] evidence pointed towards another suspect, and many police officers doubted the version of the police officers that was attacked that happened within the first few days there was a video showing that there was someone else on the scene. How can we explain that he was detained for five days after that?”

Given the circumstances of the case, the judge concluded that the crown prosecutor’s office were justified in arresting and charging Camara.

“So, it’s not the fact that he was detained and he was a Black man, it’s the fact that they kept him, they accused him, they kept him detained even though they had a lot of proof that it was not him — he collaborated and they still detained him for five days. That’s where the discrimination is at play, it’s not at the moment of the arrest, well it’s not only at the moment of the arrest.”

The victim’s lawyer agrees with some elements of the report indicating that it found flaws in the Montreal police’s investigation, including the mismanagement of potential evidence.

The report calls on the force to improve on processes for future cases.

“In that investigation no one confronted the police officers, the witnesses, so it’s only a one side investigation. On the contrary, a trial, there are lawyers that can ask questions and go further so that’s why for us it’s very important that there’s a trial in this case,” added Dufresne-Lemire.

Camara is still suing the Montreal police department, the Directeur des Poursuites Criminelles et Pénales and the city of Montreal for $1.2 million.

“This was a one-sided administrative investigation so this is not a judgement even though the investigator is a sitting judge so it doesn’t have any impact on the lawsuit.”